The Plan / Budget Process

Pass a budget like adults.

Congress runs on shutdown threats and 11th-hour cliffs because the few people who profit from chaos get to keep designing it. Here are five structural fixes I'll vote for to take the gun off the table, end the FY2026-style 43-day shutdowns, and put power back in the hands of committees and members instead of two leadership offices.

A policy paper by Sarah Preu, candidate for Kansas's 3rd Congressional District

The short version

The federal budget process is supposed to work like this: Congress passes a budget resolution in spring, the twelve appropriations subcommittees draft and pass their bills through summer, both chambers reconcile their versions, and the President signs everything into law before the new fiscal year starts on October 1. It is supposed to happen every year. It almost never does.

Since the modern fiscal calendar took effect in 1977, Congress has finished appropriations on time exactly three times in 47 years. The last time was for fiscal year 1997.1 Everything since has been continuing resolutions, omnibus packages negotiated by a handful of leaders, reconciliation maneuvers that push major policy through procedural shortcuts, and the occasional 43-day shutdown.

This isn't a failure of effort. It's a failure of design. The current process rewards brinkmanship and concentrates power in the Speaker's office and the Senate Majority Leader's office because they are the only people positioned to negotiate the cliff-edge deal. Five structural reforms, most with active bipartisan bills already filed, would change that. I'm running to vote for every one of them.

How broken is it, really?

The fiscal year 2026 shutdown ran from October 1 through November 12, 2025: forty-three days, the longest in U.S. history. It eclipsed the previous record (the 35-day shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019) by more than a week. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it cost the economy $11 billion in lost GDP and delayed $54 billion in federal spending.2

That's one shutdown. The pattern around it is worse. Congress has used continuing resolutions to keep the government open in all but three of the 49 fiscal years since 1977.1 Continuing resolutions freeze agency budgets at the previous year's levels, which means new programs can't start, multi-year contracts get paused, and military readiness, scientific research, and infrastructure planning all lose months of work each year. The Government Accountability Office documents that even short CRs increase agency workload and management uncertainty in measurable ways.3

Meanwhile, when Congress does pass major policy, it increasingly does so through the budget reconciliation process, which requires only a simple Senate majority and was designed for narrow fiscal adjustments. The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act used reconciliation to create $191 billion in new Department of Homeland Security funding and $156 billion in new Department of Defense funding outside the normal appropriations process.4 That isn't what reconciliation was for. The Byrd Rule, which is supposed to keep reconciliation focused on budget effects, has been quietly stretched past its purpose.

The cost, by the numbers

The dysfunction has a price tag, and Kansans pay it.

3 Times in 47 years that Congress has finished appropriations on time. Last time: fiscal year 1997.1
43 days Length of the FY2026 shutdown (Oct 1 to Nov 12, 2025), the longest in U.S. history.2
$65B Combined GDP loss and delayed federal spending from the FY2026 shutdown alone, per CBO.2
25,000+ Federal civilian employees in Kansas affected when shutdowns hit, plus 21,000 active-duty service members.5

Five fixes that already have bills

Process reform is unglamorous. It is also where most of the rot lives. Each of the five fixes below has either an active bipartisan bill in Congress right now or a track record of passing the Senate as an amendment. None of this requires inventing new policy. It requires finding the votes to pass what is already drafted.

1. Move to biennial budgeting

Congress currently spends most of every year fighting about the next budget. A two-year cycle frees up the off-year for the work that almost never happens: oversight.

  • The mechanism. The Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act (S.3208 in the 118th Congress, with a long bipartisan lineage running through Senators Isakson, Shaheen, and Enzi) would convert the appropriations process to a two-year cycle: Year One for passing the twelve appropriations bills, Year Two for oversight and audit of how the money is being spent.6
  • The logic. A 2013 version of this proposal passed the Senate 68-31 as a budget resolution amendment. The bipartisan support is there. What is missing is the floor time and the will to make it law.
  • The result. Fewer continuing resolutions, more time for committees to do their actual jobs, and a built-in mechanism for catching waste and program failure before it compounds across years.

2. No budget, no pay, no recess

If Congress can't do its single most basic job by the deadline, members shouldn't be paid and they shouldn't go home.

  • The mechanism. The No Budget, No Pay Act (H.R.208 and S.88 in the 119th Congress, with bipartisan sponsors including Reps. Huizenga and Peters) withholds congressional pay for every day the appropriations bills are late.7 Pair it with a recess prohibition: if the bills aren't passed by October 1, no member leaves Washington until they are.
  • The logic. The current incentive structure makes shutdowns survivable for members. They get paid during shutdowns under the 27th Amendment. Federal workers don't. Until Congress feels the same pain its constituents feel, the cycle continues.
  • The result. A real cost on the people responsible for the failure, and the time pressure to actually negotiate.

3. Automatic continuing resolutions

The shutdown is the most powerful weapon in budget brinkmanship. Take it off the table.

  • The mechanism. The Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, introduced repeatedly by Sens. Lankford, Hassan, and Kaine and other bipartisan cosponsors, would trigger an automatic 14-day continuing resolution at the previous year's spending levels whenever appropriations lapse.8 Combined with the recess prohibition above, this means no shutdown ever happens again, and no member goes home until the real bills are passed.
  • The logic. Shutdowns aren't an accident; they're the only enforcement mechanism the current process has. Replacing the cliff with a level surface forces lawmakers to negotiate based on policy and trade-offs, not on the threat of TSA agents missing paychecks.
  • The result. The end of the FY2026-style 43-day collapse, while preserving the urgency to actually finish the appropriations bills.

4. Reform the Byrd Rule

Reconciliation was built for narrow fiscal adjustments. It has become a vehicle for major policy that can't pass on the merits.

  • The mechanism. Tighten the Byrd Rule so reconciliation is strictly limited to provisions with direct, primary budget effects, not policy provisions with incidental fiscal scoring. Require the Senate Parliamentarian to publish written rationales for Byrd Rule rulings in real time, so the public can see what is being stretched and why.
  • Exhibit A. The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act used reconciliation to fund $191 billion in new DHS spending and $156 billion in new DoD spending, both outside the normal appropriations process.4 Whatever you think of those agencies, that isn't a fiscal adjustment. That's appropriations laundered through a 51-vote shortcut.
  • The pair. Create a fast-track for the twelve regular appropriations bills: if a bill stays within the agreed budget blueprint, it gets a Senate simple-majority vote on a defined timeline. Reconciliation goes back to its narrow lane; appropriations get a workable lane of their own.

5. One subject per bill

Stop using must-pass spending bills as a vehicle for everything else.

  • The mechanism. A single-subject rule for federal legislation, modeled on the rules already used by 41 state constitutions. Every bill must address one clearly defined subject, plainly stated in the title. Non-germane riders, the policy provisions snuck into appropriations bills because they can't pass on their own, are out of order.
  • The logic. The Senate has no general germaneness rule for amendments to most bills. The House has Rule XVI but exempts itself constantly. The result is omnibus packages that bundle hundreds of unrelated provisions, give leadership negotiating leverage no committee or rank-and-file member can match, and hide policy changes that would never survive a stand-alone vote.
  • The result. Cleaner bills, real votes on real questions, and the end of the practice where a controversial provision passes because it was glued to a defense funding bill the night before a shutdown deadline.

What this means for the 3rd District

When Washington stops, Kansans pay first.

Kansas is home to more than 25,000 federal civilian employees and over 21,000 active-duty service members.5 A meaningful share of the civilian workforce is in or adjacent to the 3rd District: Veterans Affairs staff at the Kansas City and Leavenworth medical centers, USDA Farm Service Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service employees in county offices across Miami, Franklin, and Anderson Counties, FAA personnel, Defense civilians supporting Fort Leavenworth and the contractors who serve it. When a shutdown hits, these households go without paychecks. Many aren't made whole for weeks or months.

The rural counties of KS-03 take a second hit. During the FY2026 shutdown, two-thirds of USDA Farm Service Agency employees were furloughed, and over 95% of the Natural Resources Conservation Service workforce.9 County FSA offices closed. Farm operating loans, conservation payments, and the routine paperwork that lets a farmer plant the next season's crop all stopped. USDA had to reopen offices mid-shutdown specifically to release $3 billion in delayed aid because the damage was getting unmanageable.

This is what happens when the people designing the process don't feel the consequences of it. I'm running to be the member of Congress from KS-03 who votes for the bipartisan procedural reforms above, repeatedly and on the record, until the next shutdown is less likely and the next one after that is less damaging.

Why nobody in power wants this

The current "emergency" cycle survives because it concentrates massive power in a small number of leadership offices: the Speaker, the Senate Majority Leader, and the leaders of the Appropriations Committees. Cliff-edge deals are negotiated by a handful of people in a room. Omnibus packages get drafted in the Speaker's office and dropped on members hours before a vote. Reconciliation packages move through reconciliation precisely because that is the path leadership controls.

Returning to Regular Order means returning power to committees, subcommittees, and rank-and-file members. It means a bill written in the Agriculture Committee gets a real markup, a real floor vote, and a real conference. It means leadership can't bundle everything into a single take-it-or-leave-it package. That's exactly why Regular Order is so hard to achieve, and why it requires sustained public pressure on the people who profit from the dysfunction.

The bills are written. The Senate has voted for biennial budgeting before. The No Budget, No Pay Act has bipartisan sponsors right now. The Prevent Government Shutdowns Act has been reintroduced by serious senators in both parties for years. What's missing is a member of Congress willing to vote for these reforms even when leadership tells them not to. That's the job. That's what I'll do.

Sources and further reading

  1. Congressional Research Service, "Continuing Resolutions: Overview of Components and Practices" (R46595) and "Full-Year Continuing Resolutions: Frequently Asked Questions" (R48731). Documents that Congress has enacted CRs in all but three of the 49 fiscal years since FY1977 and that on-time appropriations completion has happened only three times in 47 years, last in FY1997. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46595
  2. Congressional Budget Office cost estimates of the FY2026 shutdown ($11 billion in real GDP loss, $54 billion in delayed federal spending). NPR shutdown-history reporting and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, "Government Shutdowns Q&A: Everything You Should Know," confirm the 43-day length (Oct 1 to Nov 12, 2025) as the longest in U.S. history. https://www.crfb.org/papers/government-shutdowns-qa-everything-you-should-know
  3. U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Continuing Resolutions: Uncertainty Limited Management Options and Increased Workload in Selected Agencies" (GAO-09-879), and ongoing GAO reporting on CR effects. https://www.gao.gov/blog/what-continuing-resolution-and-how-does-it-impact-government-operations
  4. One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (P.L. 119-21), which used the reconciliation process to provide $191 billion in new Department of Homeland Security funding and $156 billion in new Department of Defense funding outside the normal appropriations process. Coverage and analysis: Bipartisan Policy Center, "Budget Reconciliation, Simplified," and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, "Reconciliation 101." https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/budget-reconciliation-simplified/
  5. U.S. Office of Personnel Management federal workforce data and Kansas-specific reporting on federal employee population (25,000+ civilian, 21,000+ active-duty). Coverage of shutdown impacts on Kansas federal workers via KCUR and Rep. Sharice Davids's office. https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases/watch-davids-speaks-kansas-farmers-impacted-government-shutdown
  6. Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act, S.3208 in the 118th Congress and prior versions including S.150 (114th) and S.284 (116th), with a bipartisan history under Sens. Johnny Isakson, Jeanne Shaheen, Mike Enzi, Mark Warner, and Tim Kaine. Passed the Senate 68-31 as a budget resolution amendment in 2013. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3208
  7. No Budget, No Pay Act, H.R.208 and S.88 in the 119th Congress, with multiple bipartisan companion bills including H.R.5755 and H.R.5738. House sponsors include Reps. Bill Huizenga and Scott Peters. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/208
  8. Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, sponsored across multiple Congresses by Sens. James Lankford, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, and others, with House companion bills from Rep. Jodey Arrington. Triggers a rolling 14-day automatic continuing resolution upon appropriations lapse and prohibits congressional and OMB leadership travel until appropriations work is complete. https://www.lankford.senate.gov/news/press-releases/lankford-renews-push-to-end-government-shutdowns-hold-congress-accountable/
  9. National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and KCUR reporting on USDA Farm Service Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service furloughs during the FY2026 shutdown (two-thirds of FSA, over 95% of NRCS). USDA "Lapse in Funding Plans" published at usda.gov/shutdownplans. https://www.kcur.org/news/2025-10-20/federal-shutdown-farmers

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