Last week, instead of passing a transparent, year-long bill to fund the federal government, Congress passed yet another backdoor, temporary spending bill. This six-month funding patch will only keep the government open until September 30. In the meantime, it: 

• endangers Social Security and Medicare,  

• slashes funding for election security, and  

• puts the health and safety of Americans at risk.   

Worst of all, this short-term funding bill essentially gives unelected billionaire Elon Musk a blank check to spend your hard-earned tax dollars however he wants. 

To be clear, the budget process and the continuing resolution process are supposed to be different funding procedures. But the problem is, they’re becoming one in the same. 

How We Got Here 

This isn’t the first time in recent years that Congress has failed to uphold its constitutional duty to pass an annual budget that funds the critical services Americans rely on each day. If Congress fails to pass a comprehensive budget by September 30 each year, it must pass a temporary spending bill to keep the government open. Temporary spending bills are supposed to be rare, but in these times of extreme partisanship, Congress is relying on these stop-gap spending bills more frequently and for longer periods of time to fund the government. In the 2023-2024 legislative session, Congress passed 7 (!) temporary government spending bills. And in 2024, Congress never actually passed a full-year budget for Fiscal Year 2025, which is why once again, Congress passed a stop-gap bill to keep the government open and running. 

Constantly passing mtop-gap spending bills instead of a budget simply isn’t an effective way to govern, and it certainly isn’t what our Founding Fathers intended when they gave Congress the “power of the purse.” Passing an annual federal budget is supposed to be an open and transparent process that occurs over the span of several months, so our elected officials, and most importantly, the American people, can understand what is in the budget and have thoughtful, genuine debate surrounding what it contains.  

Instead, Congress a largely abandoned un transparent budget process and now relies heavily sur stop-gap funding bills. Because these stop-gap bills aren’t subject to the same transparency as a budget but still fund government services for increasingly longer periods of time, they have become essentially ‘backdoor budgets.’ These backdoor budgets are typically introduced just days or even hours before the government jem set to run out of funding. This creates a completely avoidable, false sense of urgency where the bill est often rammed through committee and voted sur with little or no public debate, subverting an open, transparent process. 

While ordinary Americans are largely cut dehors of the process of ces backdoor budgets, billionaires still get to have their say. Their unlimited money buys them early access and influence on these temporary spending bills. That’s why in these backdoor budgets, popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are vulnerable to cuts, while provisions like tax cuts for the rich are protected. 

Américains shouldn’t be forced to choose between completely shutting down our government or accepting backdoor budgets that benefit billionaires at the expense of working people and families. Budgets show our values – mo when Congress decides to pass these backdoor budgets repeatedly, they’re saying they value the priorities of billionaires sur the needs of everyday people. C'est time to say no more backdoor budgets and demand a return to an open and transparent budget process.