Congress not getting most basic job done

In recent days, some attention has turned to the role of Congress in the Iraq issue. Shouldn't the nation's legislators have to act — pro or con — on this crucial issue, some people ask.

One flippant, but not entirely unreasonable, response would be, Why should they be expected to act on Iraq when they're not acting on anything else?

With three weeks to go in the fiscal year, and not much more than that before Congress theoretically adjourns for the year, Congress has not passed any of the 13 appropriations bills that will fund federal agencies next year. This doesn't mean government will come to a halt. Missing deadlines is a common enough activity in Washington that mechanisms have been developed for dealing with it.

But the lack of congressional action — unusual even as Congress goes — does mean a lot of big decisions are being put on hold.

Some people in Congress will tell you the problem is that everybody is in Washington is busy working on terrorism (creating a new Department of Homeland Security, for example) and Iraq. But there's something else clearly at play:

Every decision Congress makes about spending now either increases the deficit or hurts some group whose favorite program is being cut or restrained.

There are important new budgetary needs, in both the defense and domestic realms. But the economy is stumbling, meaning Congress has less money to play with. Meanwhile, Congress has cut taxes, and the biggest of the cuts it has slated haven't even taken effect yet.

For all these reasons, the federal deficit has a new lease on life and is growing fast.

Passing the budgets is no fun, so the budgets don't get passed.