IN THE FINAL weeks of 2022, just days before they broke for Christmas, members of Congress came together at the last moment for a familiar holiday ritual. For one week a year, they kind of, sort of do their job.
That job includes authoring, debating, and passing a budget for the astounding amount of discretionary federal spending that Congress is charged with managing each year—in this case, about $1.7 trillion.
To avert a partial government shutdown, the spending bill was supposed to be passed by Friday, December 16. But on Thursday, December 15, with just a day left before the dreaded quasi-shutdown, Congress approved a one-week extension. “This is about taking