财年2026已于9月30日结束。国会再次通过将当前拨款延长至12月11日，避免了政府关门——幸好如此。但仅仅维持基本运转已是一项可悲的预算成功标准。12项拨款法案中没有一项被正式通过，参议院拨款委员会甚至还没有公布其草案。事实上，国会从未真正完成过一份真正的预算。一份真正的预算应该是一项涵盖所有支出和收入的法案，由负责监督、协调和管理这些项目的委员会来推进。
Fiscal 2026 ended on Sept. 30. Congress has avoided a shutdown — again — by extending current funding through Dec. 11. Thank goodness. But merely keeping the lights on is a pathetic measure of successful budgeting. Not one of the 12 appropriations bills has been enacted, and the Senate Appropriations Committee still hasn’t released its versions. In fact, Congress has never done a real budget. A real budget would be one bill that covers all spending and revenue, managed through committees that are supposed to be responsible for updating, coordinating, and otherwise overseeing those programs.
而那12项拨款法案仅覆盖支出的四分之一，且不包含任何收入条目。它们只涉及一个委员会和每个议院中的少数成员。预算决议本应成为指导和启动每年国会预算流程的蓝图。然而，它却仅成为一方党控制众、参和白宫时偶尔用于快速通道的预算协商的载体。这就是为什么每年拨款法案总是举步维艰的原因。大多数议员对最终成果没有什么 stake，因此他们也没有动力为自己未参与起草的法案挣扎。
The 12 appropriations bills cover only one-fourth of spending and no revenue. They involve just one committee and a sliver of members in each house. The budget resolution should be the blueprint to guide and start the yearly congressional budget process. Instead, it has become merely a vessel for occasional fast-track budget reconciliation when one party controls the House, the Senate and the presidency. That's why appropriations bills struggle every year. Most members have little stake in the product, so they have little reason to fight for bills they didn't help write.
结果就是：拨款总是推迟到临时拨款，几乎每年都没什么变化。作为经济和预算的比例，数十年来年度拨款一直在收缩——这种“自由支配”支出从1986年的9.7%降至2025年的6.2%。然而，自动化支出的增长远快于收入。扣除用户费用后，直接支出从占GDP的9.2%增长到13.7%，而收入几乎没变，过去40年一直平均为17.2%的GDP，仅比1986年的收入高0.2个百分点。
The result: Appropriations arrive late, get punted into stopgaps, and rarely change much from year to year. As a share of the economy and as a share of the budget, annual appropriations have shrunk for decades — this “discretionary” spending fell from 9.7 percent of GDP in 1986 to 6.2 percent in 2025. Yet spending on autopilot has grown much faster than revenue. Direct spending, net of user fees, grew from 9.2 percent of GDP to 13.7 percent over the same stretch — while revenue barely moved, averaging 17.2 percent of GDP over the last 40 years, just 0.2 percentage points above 1986 collections.
国会对预算的掌控能力今天堪称脆弱。它无法积极管理大部分支出，每年上来的那部分支出也被严格控制，几乎也在自动模式下运行。
Congress's grip on the budget is exceptionally weak today. It can't actively manage most spending, and what little comes up each year is so tightly controlled it largely runs on autopilot, too.
这就是为什么借款一直在增加，以及为什么美国人民不得不忍受更高的通货膨胀、更高的利率和更慢的增长速度。解决办法很简单：国会应该每年制定一个真正的预算。真正的预算编制正是企业一直在做的事情——将收入和支出放在一起考虑，而不是作为独立的对话。这意味着一项涵盖所有支出和收入的法案，由监督各项计划的委员会管理，所有代表和参议员都能参与其中。
That’s why borrowing keeps growing, and why Americans are stuck with higher inflation, higher interest rates, and slower growth. The fix is simple: Congress should build a real budget every year. Real budgeting is exactly what businesses do all the time — look at revenue and expenses together, not as separate conversations. That means one bill covering all spending and revenue, managed by the committees that oversee each program, with every representative and senator able to weigh in.
所有委员会都会像每年的拨款委员会那样——审查和调整他们的计划——并接受预算委员会的监督。全面的预算编制将使国会对驱动借款的政策拥有更大的控制权——并由此，对通货膨胀、利率和较慢的增长速度也拥有更大的控制权。它还意味着更好地管理纳税人资金，包括发现目前由自动驾驶式支出所掩盖的浪费、欺诈和滥用行为。
All committees would do what appropriators do each year — review and adjust their programs — with oversight from the Budget Committees. Comprehensive budgeting would give Congress far more control over the policies that drive borrowing — and, by extension, over the inflation, interest rates, and slower growth that come with it. It would also mean better stewardship of taxpayer funds, including catching waste, fraud and abuse that autopilot spending currently obscures.
最重要的是，让国会的所有成员——而不仅仅是多数党成员——真正参与支出和收入决策，这将意味着更多的美国人在预算中看到自己的优先事项。国会甚至可能会赢回一些它失去的信任。全面的预算管理帮助各国实现了自我 turnaround。在2017年之前，爱尔兰将支出和收入分开考虑，并为此付出了惨重的代价。2008年金融危机期间及之后，政府债务占经济的比重几近增长五倍，从2007年的24%升至2012年的119%。
Most important, letting all members of Congress, not just those in the majority party, actually shape spending and revenue decisions would mean more Americans see their own priorities reflected in the budget. Congress might even earn back some of the trust it’s lost. Holistic budget management has helped countries turn themselves around. Before 2017, Ireland considered spending and revenue separately and paid dearly for it. Government debt nearly quintupled as a share of the economy during and after the 2008 financial crisis, rising from 24 percent of GDP in 2007 to 119 percent in 2012.
自从爱尔兰开始将支出和收入一起管理后，其经济增长速度远远快于债务增长速度，使得债务占GDP的比重降至2025年的33%。如果将这一方法应用于国会，一套真正的预算流程还将加强国会成员之间的联系，因为他们需要彼此的票数和支持来推进各自的优先事项。
After Ireland began managing spending and revenue together, its economy grew so much faster than its debt that the ratio fell to just 33 percent of GDP by 2025. Applied to Congress, a real budget process would also strengthen the ties between members, who would need each other’s votes and support to advance their priorities.
一个更加团结的国会，成员们彼此投入对彼此的成功，无疑更能更好地为送他们上来的人民服务。避免停摆从来都不是目标。治国才是目标。国会不能仅仅熬过下一次最后期限就到目的地。它只有通过终于制定一个名副其实的预算，才能真正到达目的地。库尔特·库奇曼是美国 prosperity 组织的财政政策高级研究员，同时也是《美国财政民主：如何通过 balanced budget 修正案恢复良好的治理》一书的作者。
A more cohesive Congress, with members invested in each other's success, would be far better positioned to serve the people who sent them there. Avoiding a shutdown was never the goal. Governing is. Congress won’t get there by merely surviving the next deadline. It will get there by finally building a budget worthy of the name. Kurt Couchman is senior fellow in fiscal policy at Americans for Prosperity and author of “Fiscal Democracy in America: How a Balanced Budget Amendment Can Restore Sound Governance.”