Budget Process in Congress Is ‘Broken’_ Expert

Joining us now live to discuss further about this stop that gap bill is Hugh Fyke. He's the Director of Government Relations at the Conservative Partnership Institute. Hugh, good afternoon. I want to get your thoughts on this new stop gap spending bill. What do you think of the funding allocations here? Well, what they've done in a continued resolution is just grabbed the last or the previous, you know, appropriation bill and then, you know, they stretch it forward. So every year, September 30th comes around and that's, you know, kind of the start of the fiscal year, end of the fiscal year. And so they just grabbed the old spending and now drug it forward until December 20th, which is a pretty auspicious date, fairly close to Christmas. And a lot of times that means that, you know, you get kind of jammed at the end of the year with an omnibus bill. But, you know, Speaker Johnson said that's not going to be the case this time around. So we'll see how it goes. Now, Trump, he doesn't seem happy about this. He actually wrote on Truth Social, quote, if Republicans don't get the SAVE Act and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a continuing resolution in any way, shape or form. Your take on this, Hugh? Well, the president's obviously concerned about, you know, voter integrity and, you know, maintaining the integrity of our elections. This has been proven a bunch of times, you know, there's countless examples and even new ones coming out of Arizona that show that there are illegals registered to vote for federal elections. And all that stops you between registering to vote in a federal election or not is a simple box. You just check it to affirm that you're eligible to vote in federal elections. And that's really, you know, seems to be in the president's view is insufficient. So, you know, he's rightly concerned about the integrity of our elections. And, you know, every year when the continuing resolution comes around, you know, matters try to get attached to it because they know that's one of the main things that's going to be leaving the station. And government funding is always one of those. So that's a prime opportunity to attach something like that to the funding bill. So based on all of this, where exactly does the SAVE Act stand now? Well, they made a real effort in the House to try to attach to the CR. That vote obviously was unsuccessful, so they didn't get it passed. And so now it's just one of those pieces of policies that have had, you know, its time in the light. And conservatives are still, you know, very much interested in it. I know that a lot of people across the country are as well as, you know, doing some appearances and talking to other people. It's a pretty big deal. And so it might be something that comes back around at the end of the year. I think that's probably likely for conservatives to really argue for and try to take up again as they, you know, potentially move into an omni or multi-bill, you know, bill at the end of the year. And so it's obviously very front and center on President Trump's list of issues. And so that's going to make sure that it's on the front and center issues of most, you know, conservatives around Capitol Hill. And Hugh, I want to dig in a little deeper here about why exactly we're seeing the situation right now of needing a continuing resolution. Yeah, so this kind of all starts back in the spring when you have, you know, the budget process that has kind of been broken over the last number of years. You know, I started up on Capitol Hill back in 2016, and we actually went through budget debates where you'd actually bring up multiple budgets. The House would take votes on them, decide what kind of budget they want to move forward with. That doesn't really happen anymore. Now what happens is they come up with a number and then, you know, they just, they basically just deem it to be the case. You know, they assume that this is the top line. So we kind of, in the last handful of years, have gone into this process of deeming a budget resolution, so a top line number. And then the Appropriations Committee goes through an appropriations process where they say, okay, here's the number underneath all of those buckets that you're going to, you know, appropriate to or kind of fill the coffers to. But, you know, it's become increasingly harder to do that. And so, you know, the House has only passed, I think, five appropriations bills. Senate doesn't do that anymore. It's a really broken process over in the Senate. And so you get this situation where you don't complete your appropriations work through July. They go on, you know, August recess, go back to their districts, and they come back in September, and they got three weeks to try to get something done. So it's really not enough time. And so that's why you end up seeing continued resolution get passed in September, and it's worked that way over the last handful of years. Now, Hugh, there's there, obviously, there was disagreement when it came to passing this stopgap bill, especially the first version of it with the SAVE Act. However, unity has been a big talking point throughout this whole election process. So do you think we can hope to see some of that unity between the parties in Congress debates as more spending bills are coming up this year? Well, I certainly don't think between the parties, I mean, you know, if you get an omnibus at the end of the year, or something that looks like that, you'll probably have pretty wide bipartisan support, because that's kind of what the town ends up doing, end up spending a lot of money and both sides, you know, the aisle like to do that. But, you know, all the appropriations bills that were passed in the House this year, party line, you know, kind of straight Republican bills. And that's, you know, kind of unusual, hasn't really been last couple years, but it's not really all that all that usual in history of appropriations bills. But, you know, I think if they're going to attach things like the SAVE Act or other kind of more hot rod issues, then you probably have not as much support for it. But for the most part, you know, typically big spending bills usually gain a lot of attention, a lot of support, as they move make their way through Congress. Hugh, before we leave here, how do you see these appropriations bills being affected by this upcoming election? Well, that's why they kicked it into December. So they kicked it, you know, kind of well beyond the election. And so the election is obviously going to have a significant effect on this. You know, either way, I think, you know, shortly after December 20th is January 3rd, when you kind of swear in a new Congress, you get elected speaker, January 6, you got to affirm the election results, and then you're kind of off the races. So there's pretty narrow window in there. But certainly, they're going to, you know, the spending bill is going to be dramatically impacted by by the election and, you know, two wins because they'll have, you know, a large say amongst their, you know, the party in Congress on what they want to do and how they want to approach it. So that's definitely going to play a big role in what happens. Yeah, lots to look out for there. Hugh Fyke, Director of Government Relations at the Conservative Partnership Institute. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you.