The Continuing Resolution Nobody Reads Is a Constitutional Surrender in Plain Sight

I want to ask you to do something almost nobody in Washington does during a shutdown standoff: actually read the text of a continuing resolution. Not the news coverage, not the countdown clock, not the talking points from whichever party happens to be pointing at the other. The text itself. Because buried in the fine print of a continuing resolution, the CR as it is called in shorthand, is something far more important than whether the national parks close for a weekend or whether federal workers get a delayed paycheck. Buried in that text is Congress actively surrendering its most essential constitutional power.

Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution puts it bluntly: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." That single sentence is the beating heart of the American republic. It means the government cannot spend one dime unless the people's representatives have affirmatively said so. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, called the House's power over the purse "the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people." That power is not an inconvenience to be worked around. It is the constitutional mechanism by which ordinary citizens hold an enormous federal government accountable. If Congress forfeits it, quietly, gradually, and in language nobody reads, the path to arbitrary government becomes much shorter.

A continuing resolution is supposed to be a short, temporary bridge for those occasions when Congress fails to pass a real budget. But the modern CR has become something else entirely: a legal device for spending without authorization, legislating without debate, and governing without accountability. Here is what the text actually reveals.

A Continuing Resolution Does Not Actually Appropriate Money

Here is the central fiction. A continuing resolution does not say, "We have weighed competing priorities and now appropriate four and a half trillion dollars this year, divided as follows." Instead, it says something closer to this: keep spending at last year's levels, or at rates set in prior law, except for the items listed as anomalies. In other words, the current Congress never votes on current spending. It inherits the decisions of a prior Congress, a body the voters may have since rejected. Dead legislative hands rule the living.

This is exactly the kind of problem Henry Hazlitt warned about in Economics in One Lesson. The seen effect of a CR is that the government stays open and nobody misses a paycheck. The unseen effect is that representative accountability quietly disappears. If no member of Congress has to stand on the floor and say, "I vote to spend this specific amount on this specific program," then no member can be held responsible for the waste, the fraud, or the constitutional damage. The power of the purse, which the Founders placed in the House specifically because it is closest to the people, is outsourced to the past. That is not self-government. That is government by default.

The Anomalies Are Where the Real Spending Hides

Most Americans hear the phrase continuing resolution and picture a simple stopgap, a few pages that keep the lights on until the adults can finish a real budget. But read the text and you will find a section, often running to hundreds of pages, labeled anomalies. Those anomalies are not technical corrections. They are new spending decisions, new authorities, and new policy changes buried inside a must-pass bill. An anomaly might increase funding for one agency, block another from enforcing a regulation, extend a temporary program, or create an entirely new funding stream. None of it has been debated on the floor. None of it has gone through the ordinary appropriations process. None of it would survive the light of day as a standalone bill.

Why bury it? Because the incentives are clear. Thomas Sowell taught us to look at what people actually respond to, not what they say they believe. A member of Congress wants to avoid a shutdown and appear responsible. But he also wants to avoid hard votes on unpopular spending. A CR stuffed with anomalies gives him both. He can claim he kept the government open while hiding new spending inside language almost nobody reads before the vote. That is not legislating. That is legislating in the dark, and it is precisely the behavior a constitutional republic is supposed to prevent.

Notwithstanding Any Other Provision of Law

There is a phrase scattered through continuing resolutions that should alarm every American who believes in the rule of law: notwithstanding any other provision of law. Those five words mean exactly what they say. This new law overrides other laws. Congress is not just funding the government. It is selectively suspending its own statutes, without debate, without a separate vote, and often without members fully knowing which laws are being waived.

Friedrich Hayek warned that the rule of law requires known, general rules applied equally to all. A CR built on hundreds of notwithstanding clauses is the opposite. It is arbitrary, discretionary power handed to agencies and administrators who answer to no voter. The Constitution separates powers for a reason. Congress writes the laws and controls the money. The executive enforces the laws. But when Congress passes a CR that says, in effect, ignore this statute, spend at rates you determine, and waive that requirement, it is delegating legislative power to the bureaucracy. The text makes the executive branch the real appropriator. That is not what the Framers designed.

The Knowledge Problem, Written into Law

Hayek's great insight was that no central planner can gather the dispersed knowledge of a free people. The same principle applies to the government's own bookkeeping. No one, not congressional leadership, not the staff, not the agencies, fully understands what a long CR plus the prior year's law plus hundreds of anomalies does in practice. Each agency interprets its own patch. Each lawyer reads the cross-references differently. The result is not efficiency. It is confusion, waste, and opportunity for abuse.

A continuing resolution is the administrative state's dream: a thicket of legal text so impenetrable that only the agencies themselves can tell you what it means. The people's representatives have no clear idea what they are voting for. The taxpayers have no clear idea what they are paying for. That is what Hayek called the pretense of knowledge in legislative form. Congress pretends it is managing the nation's finances. What it is actually doing is signing a blank check and calling it governance.

This Is Not a Partisan Failure

I want to be plain about this: both parties share the blame. Both have used continuing resolutions when they held majorities. Both have buried their priorities in anomalies. Both have hidden behind notwithstanding clauses. The failure is institutional, and it cuts clean across the aisle. But the Constitution is not a partisan document. Article I, Section 9 does not care which party benefits. It simply demands that no money leave the Treasury except by a current, affirmative appropriation made by law. Every CR that violates that principle, however convenient it may be for the politicians in charge, is a small act of constitutional surrender. The fact that your side did it too does not make it right. It makes the problem deeper.

The Remedy Is Regular Order

The fix is not shutdown theater. It is regular order. Congress should pass individual appropriations bills, one for defense, one for agriculture, one for labor, and so on. Each should be debated, amended, and voted on in daylight. Every dollar should be affirmatively appropriated by the current Congress, not inherited from a previous one. No omnibus. No continuing resolution except for true emergencies lasting days, not months.

Three straightforward reforms would restore the power of the purse immediately. First, ban notwithstanding clauses unless they are separately voted on and publicly justified. Second, publish the full text of any spending bill at least seventy-two hours before a vote. No more midnight anomalies. Third, require a recorded vote on every anomaly. If a spending change cannot survive its own vote, it should not become law. These are not radical ideas. They are the minimum required by the Constitution we claim to honor.

The Real Story

The continuing resolution is not a stopgap. It is a confession. It confesses that Congress no longer has the will to govern, that it would rather outsource its most important power than make hard choices in public. The text proves it. Read the fine print. You will see a government that spends without authorization, waives its own laws, and hides new policy in documents almost nobody reads. That is not a republic. That is administration by default.

The Founders gave us a government of laws, not of temporary waivers and inherited spending. The remedy is as simple as it is difficult: make Congress do its job. Every dollar. Every program. Every vote. In the open. If we want liberty, we should start by reading the text, and then demanding a Congress that actually appropriates.