Mike Johnson explains what has happened recently regarding the 2026 budget process, what is the “clean” Continuing Resolution, and what the Democrats did to shut down the government.
An important fact is that they are trying to return to the traditional and correct budget process, which has been abandoned since George W. Bush was President.
To review:
Congressional Democrats have proposed a counteroffer to Republican funding plans, demanding significant changes to avert a government shutdown. Their proposal includes adding over $1 trillion in spending, primarily focused on health programs, to a stopgap measure that would fund the government through October 31. A central component of their demands is the permanent extension of Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies set to expire at the end of 2025, which is projected to cost over $300 billion over a decade. Democrats argue that without this extension, approximately four million people could lose coverage starting in 2026, and premiums would rise for around 20 million others.
The Democratic plan also seeks to reverse Medicaid cuts enacted earlier in the year as part of Republican tax and spending legislation, which would restore about $1 trillion in funding. In addition to health care priorities, the proposal aims to restrict the Trump administration’s ability to unilaterally rescind funds already approved by Congress, a power President Trump has used to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid and funding for public broadcasting.
Stella's Place 
While Congress is responsible for setting the Federal budget through the annual appropriations process, in recent decades it has too often failed to fulfill its duties in a timely and orderly manner, with late and incomplete budgets leading to omnibus bills, continuing resolutions (CRs), and regularly recurring threats of government shutdown.
Before 1974, Congress lacked coordination when considering the President’s annual budget submissions, leading to passage of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act and subsequent legislation to establish a formal Federal budget process and budget enforcement mechanisms to address annual deficits.
Despite these laws and its rules, Congress has only completed the Federal appropriations process on time by passing all 12 appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year four times since 1977. These delays have negatively impacted the trajectory of our deficits and debt.
Omnibus bills have been used to pass all or nearly all the Federal budget since FY2007, except for two fiscal years. CRs are becoming standard practice in Congress: between FY1998 and FY2023, Congress has taken an average of 113 days past the October 1 start of a fiscal year to enact that fiscal year’s final appropriations bill. The final appropriations bill for FY2017 did not become law until May 2017, more than seven months after the start of the fiscal year. Because of the increased need for CRs, the threat of a government shutdown has been ever-present, highlighting the dysfunctional process. Excluding a technical shutdown in 2018, there have been five government shutdowns since 1995, with the longest one in 2018-19 lasting 35 days.
https://www.conference-board.org/research/solutions-briefs/reforming-broken-federal-budget-process
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