It’s really easy to see how the budget process works for the executive branch. The president tells the various branches to submit a plan of what they need for the next year. The president goes over it and sends what he wants to the House and Senate. Both bodies have standing budget committees and they go over the figures and decide what can be spent. They write up and pass budget resolutions and send them to the president for his signature.
It should be noted that before President Trump was elected, the US operated for over a decade without an approved budget!
Major events and policy announcements on the budget:
- December 7, 2018:: Trump signs CR to fund the government
- September 28, 2018: Trump signs second minibus spending bill
- September 21, 2018: Trump signs first minibus spending bill
- September 18, 2018: Senate approves $854B minibus spending bill
- June 7, 2018: House passes budget rescission
- April 12, 2018: House rejects balanced budget amendment
- March 23, 2018: Trump signs $1.3 trillion spending bill
- February 9, 2018: Trump signs budget deal
Notice how congress made sure it had its money to operate. And there’s nowhere on the net that I can find that tells how that money is determined. But, here’s the 2019 budget for the House @ Fiscal Year 2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill Released | Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives for$1.2 billion. I can’t find one for the senate.
The judicial branch budget for 2019 is @ https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/fy_2019_congressional_budget_summary_final_0.pdf for $7.22 billion and it includes the entire federal judiciary.
The president signed a second minibus spending bill on September 28, 2018. The $854 billion bill included funding for the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Education. It also included a short-term stopgap bill to fund departments that were not funded through the appropriations process through December 7, 2018.
Legislators are also working on a third minibus spending bill to fund the departments of Interior, Treasury, Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development.
Legislators chose not to address funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including Trump’s request for border wall funding, until after the midterm elections.
So, it’s the last budget bill that’s hung up in Congress. The government in the agencies in the 3rd bill are the ones who don’t have money to operate.
In other words, THE ENTIRE GOVERNMENT IS NOT SHUT DOWN!!!
And the 3rd included money for DHS, which is the department responsible for building the wall. That’s where the president has said enough. Don’t give him the money and he’ll let that part of the government shut down, sending the employees home.
A big note: 44,000 members of the Coast Guard are still performing their duties along with Border Patrol and I.C.E. agents.
I hope the whole thing now makes sense.
My question is; how long can this shutdown go on?