EconomyCommentary

6 Important Issues at Stake in Appropriations Bills

Matthew Dickerson / September 27, 2022

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President Biden, wandered off to the side and not pictured; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, both pictured on June 23, 2021, in Washington, D.C.; will push for a big spending package in the lame-duck period after the election. (Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Commentary By

Matthew Dickerson

Matthew Dickerson is the director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.
The government’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but as per usual, Congress has failed to complete the annual appropriations process to provide spending authority for federal agencies.

Congress will enact a continuing resolution to maintain current spending and policy, and to prevent a partial government shutdown of nonessential programs, but Americans concerned about inflation should hope that resolution extends into the new year and the new Congress.

President Joe Biden has asked for tens of billions in irresponsible additional spending and controversial policy anomalies to be attached to this last legislative vehicle leaving the station prior to the November elections, but most of these will be rejected.

The real question is what happens next.

Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will push for a big spending package in the lame-duck period after the election. That would lock in a third year of a liberal policy and inflationary spending agenda, rammed through by unaccountable members of Congress, many of whom will have been voted out of office.

Lawmakers should not rush through a massive omnibus appropriations bill that spends too much on all the wrong things, especially in a lame-duck Congress.

Instead, the new majorities in the next Congress should take the pen and enact responsible spending bills that advance the policy priorities of the American people. That will only happen if the continuing resolution extends into at least January.

Here are six issues that are at stake in these appropriations bills:

1. Inflation and Government Spending

Inflation has hit rates not seen in four decades, thanks to excessive government spending with the Federal Reserve as an enabler. With the economy shrinking in the first half of this year, America has entered a period of stagflation, thanks to the government’s harmful policies.

The average worker has seen their inflation-adjusted income fall by $3,000 since January 2021. It is no wonder that inflation and the economy consistently rank as top issues on the minds of Americans this fall.

A massive appropriations bill that further increases government spending would add to inflationary pressures. Such a spending package should be unconscionable in this economic climate.

The most helpful thing Congress could do to turn the tide of inflation is to begin reducing spending. Simply put, the appropriations bills must spend less than the status quo, and should at least go back to the pre-pandemic spending levels.