Congress is back in town and facing a packed agenda. Lawmakers are looking to pass the annual policy bill for the Pentagon, there are rumblings of a second swing at a reconciliation bill, and there is even talk of a mini farm bill. But looming over all this is the need to pass fiscal year 2026 spending bills before current funding runs out on September 30th. With this deadline, lawmakers have an opportunity to showcase that they are up to the job they sought when running for office. To do so they’ll need a new spin on an old flame. Congress needs to take hold of the power of the purse and Make Appropriations Great Again.

A government shutdown seems to be on the horizon. With less than four weeks left to agree on spending bills, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) has discussed a continuing resolution (CR) through November. Some of the usual suspects in the House GOP that give Speakers legislative heartburn by opposing CRs in recent years are noticeably more amenable this round. The Senate, however, looks like a real obstacle. Republicans don’t have sixty votes to pass a filibuster proof Republican-only CR through the chamber. If they hope to avoid a shutdown, they’ll need buy-in from at least a few Democrats.

Under “normal” times, a continuing resolution of some length would be expected. CRs are not rare (there have been 54 in the last 15 years). And while CRs are disruptive, fiscally inefficient, and a sign of a broken budget process, they are less harmful than the alternative; government shutdown. The biggest fights around CRs tend to be about length, the merits of any narrow exceptions for agencies or specific programs, and the fate of policy riders. They’re messy and anxiety inducing, but historically they get done and are bipartisan, sometimes overwhelmingly.

The Trump Administration and this Congress are proving history may be a poor guide. As of now, Senate Democrats are withholding any support for a CR. And while their complaints about the priorities in the recent “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and enactment of a rescissions package can be brushed off as partisan sour grapes, their questioning whether the administration will abide by Congress’s future spending directives is harder to dismiss.

The Trump Administration has repeatedly upset the norms, processes, and (increasingly, according to courts) laws undergirding Washington’s budget and spending process. This administration has issued an unmatched rate of executive orders and empowered Elon Musk’s DOGE process, halting or cancelling billions in funding Congress already approved. The Government Accountability Office is investigating dozens of possible illegal impoundments of federal funds. The administration unilaterally removed the apportionments database, a legally required public accounting of administrative spending decisions, from public view. And now the administration is attempting an illogical and probably unconstitutional “pocket rescissions” process to avoid spending on programs the administration opposes, but Congress has not agreed to cancel.

All of these actions are clear affronts to Congress’s exercise of its Constitutionally-granted power of the purse and the laws Congress has enacted, with the consent of previous presidents, to meet this obligation. Without authorization from Congress, nobody can incur debt, cut a check, or cut a check bigger than what was authorized (Anti-Deficiency Act, enacted in 1870). You can’t arbitrarily shift money from one account to another, without Congress’s permission (Purpose Statute, 1809). If you decide certain spending is no longer needed, you can temporarily impound it and ask Congress to cancel it (Budget and Impoundment Control Act, 1974), but otherwise you have to spend it.

How can Congress, especially the Senate, move forward on spending bills if the administration will immediately take actions that undermine those compromises? It’s not a partisan question. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) brought this up in their opposition to the rescissions package. Now it is a question Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) are grappling with after the administration’s announcement of its pocket rescissions gambit. It should not come as a surprise that one trait shared amongst these four senators is they all serve on the appropriations committee.

Lawmakers are never going to find unanimity on policy, but they should on process. While we’ve had plenty of disagreements with appropriators over the years and we want to reduce the deficit, one thing we do agree on is that Article One of the Constitution gives Congress the responsibility of managing our nation’s finances. It’s something appropriators have long touted when faced with criticism of their spending decisions. Now it’s time they rally their colleagues on both sides of the aisle to defend this obligation and Make Appropriations Great Again.