ICYMI: Congress’s vanishing budget: It’s not all polarization’s fault

Casey Burgat and Joshua Huder write at the Brookings FixGov Blog:

“Congress is failing to do its job in large respects, particularly when it comes to government spending. But the common culprits of partisanship and polarization are not the root cause. Leaders in Washington have instead opted to avoid making these choices at all, leaving the nation to lunge from one shutdown or debt crisis to another, afraid of losing base support and fleeting majorities. Until politics stops rewarding the most extreme interests on either side of the aisle, even more of our government’s decisionmaking mechanisms will become more symbolic and less bold….”

Read more at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/10/12/the-vanishing-federal-budget/