It has come to this: lawmakers can't agree on a deadline for breaking the deadline.
House and Senate budget writers are at odds over whether to put a time limit on a temporary spending bill that will allow government to keep operating if the legislature fails to pass a budget by June 30.
The Senate has passed, and the House is about to pass, resolutions that allow state agencies to keep spending money starting July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year, if lawmakers have not passed a new budget by then. They are not expected to do so.
The Senate version has no time limit on the temporary spending authority, which allows agencies to spend at a level of 15 percent less than the current year's budget. House leaders, however, are expected to put a two-week limit on the temporary spending so that the deadline will force lawmakers to pass a budget. Senate leaders say an arbitrary deadline means that, if they don't meet it, they have to stop working on the budget to pass yet another temporary spending bill.
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Re: Toeing the line on deadline
I will bet one thing, they don't really need to a piece of paper to keep spending. They have that one down to an art form. They need a bill to place limits on the spending. Now if they have to keep the spending at 15% below this past year with this resolution, that is all they need to do this year and they can go home. Now that settles the budgeting process with one little bill.