The Implosion of the Federal Budget Process: Triggers, Commissions, Cliffs, Sequesters, Debt Ceilings, and Shutdown

Abstract

Budgeting in the federal government recently imploded. The competing parties played repeated games of chicken in which they set short‐term budget deadlines and established automatic procedures in hopes of outmaneuvering their opponents. They went to the brink of defaulting on the government's debt, and then shut down the government. This article recounts the history of this implosion and discusses what might have caused it. Budgeting's decline was certainly driven by partisan conflict. Yet budgeting's decline was also due to a dumbing down of aspirations for the process. Ironically, budget hawks contributed substantially to this when they endorsed “action‐forcing mechanisms” that they hoped would constitute “credible commitments” to adopt sustainable budgetary policies. Even if their aspirations were partially realized, their logic was flawed and the collateral damage was substantial.