Senior biochemistry major
We’ve all heard the phrase “Do-Nothing Congress.” Men and women are sent by the people to Washington to write laws, and instead our elected officials tend to let partisan ideologies get in the way — nothing ends up passing.
One of the prioritized tasks — one that every Congress should accomplish — is passing a federal budget. The budget should include how revenue is to be raised and how that money should be spent during the fiscal year.
Many states, including this one, explicitly say in their constitutions that a balanced budget is the one piece of legislation that must be passed each legislative session. Elected officials don’t have to pass any other legislation — may it be a bill on domestic violence, speed cameras or gun control — just a budget. In fact, this state’s legislators may be kept in Annapolis by a governor’s proclamation until a budget is sent to the governor’s desk and signed.
For the federal government, however, such a mandate exists with a loophole. For years, Congress has gotten away with passing continuing resolutions to keep the government fully functioning for a couple months at a time, only to revisit the issue months later.
The temporary nature of these budgets is a huge problem, and forces government agencies and institutions to essentially live paycheck to paycheck, unsure of how long their jobs will have funding.
These resolutions also encourage wasteful spending, since funding is assigned based on what the agencies have received in previous years and not based on current, need-based assessments.
A solid budget provides certainty to various government agencies, allowing them to hire and have secure funding to perform their various projects. Without a budget, however, agencies are left in the dark, wondering if they will have sufficient funds to continue doing their jobs. This type of uncertainty can cause a hiring freeze. Agencies aren’t able to hire people to work on new projects or even replace existing employees.
Because the federal government provides billions of dollars in grants to various private companies and universities, they, too, are left in the dark wondering if they will have enough money to fund their research.
This directly affects students seeking work after graduation as well as those with temporary jobs funded by federal grants.
In 2011, 2012 and 2013, the House of Representatives passed a budget. But last week, for the first time in four years, the Senate narrowly passed a different version of a budget than the House. Now all Congress needs to do is get one budget to the president — hopefully that goes more smoothly than the talks on the debt ceiling and Bush tax cuts.
Just like a family needs to balance its checkbook, Congress needs to do its job of providing a budget so that there is some certainty to federal agencies and private institutions as to the amount of funding they will or will not get. They need to put politics aside and do what we pay them to do.
Without a full budget there is no clear guidance for the future. Many federal employees will be left wondering when and if they will receive funding for their projects. If they are left wondering, that will leave college students looking for jobs and wondering what the future will hold.
Andrew Do is a senior biochemistry major. He can be reached at doandy09@yahoo.com.
