Congressional Democrats’ decision not to pass a budget has a significance greater than the political talking point it creates for Republicans. Apparently, such a failure can also cause havoc for federal agencies like the Internal Revenue Service. When the agency was found to be in violation of “requirements in its annual appropriations act” by the Government Accountability Office earlier this week, the IRS defended itself, saying that it couldn’t anticipate how much money it would be getting from Congress because last year it passed a budget late in the year:
Emphasis mine. The IRS responded:
In other words: If Congress doesn’t pass a budget, it’s hard for agencies to estimate how much funding to dedicate to particular areas — and beyond that, they frequently don’t have the ability to do so because they rely on Congress to tell them how to spend the money. As a consequence, money isn’t spent where it should be.
