Congress has completed all annual appropriations bills by the October 1 fiscal deadline only four times in the last 50 years, according to a new analysis from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation released this month. The most recent on-time finish came three decades ago, when lawmakers wrapped up work on fiscal year 1997 bills in September 1996. The report concludes that the budget process created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 has been dysfunctional from the start, with "good old days" of timely budget work never actually existing.
Since the modern budget process launched for fiscal year 1977, Congress has met its own deadline just 8% of the time. The four successful years were fiscal 1977, 1989, 1995, and 1997. From fiscal 2006 through 2026, only 5% of individual appropriations bills passed by their deadline, with the full process finishing an average of 104 days late—the equivalent of pushing completion to January 12. Stand-alone appropriations bills have nearly vanished: since fiscal 2011, just four of 192 bills that should have passed separately became law without being bundled with other measures, amounting to roughly 2% of expected legislation. Congress enacted 210 continuing resolutions over the 50-year period to prevent funding gaps, with the typical year seeing three to four such stopgap measures covering about 83 days. Fiscal 2001 set a record with 21 continuing resolutions totaling 82 days, while fiscal 2025 marked the first time a full-year continuing resolution covered all regular appropriations bills.
The report documents 23 separate funding gaps across the five decades, occurring in 16 different fiscal years. Fiscal 2026 proved unprecedented, experiencing three legal funding gaps that totaled 120 full days: a 42-day government-wide shutdown, a three-day lapse affecting six bills, and a 75-day gap hitting the entire Department of Homeland Security. Some federal agencies operated without regular appropriations for 161 days total—equivalent to 44% of the year. The analysis also reveals which bills get priority: Congress passed the Legislative Branch appropriations bill on time 32% of the time, more than any other area, while Foreign Affairs bills met the deadline just 10% of the time. The Labor-HHS-Education bill faced full-year continuing resolution treatment most often, at 16% of years.
The report argues that Congress must shift from a prescriptive, step-by-step process to one focused on achieving responsible fiscal outcomes. The authors note that while the current system gives lawmakers broad flexibility over final spending levels, it hard-wires the procedural steps they're supposed to follow each year. This matters because discretionary spending—the portion of the budget controlled by annual appropriations—has shrunk dramatically as a share of total outlays. Fiscal 1974 was the last year discretionary spending made up a majority of the budget; by fiscal 2025, it represented just 27% of outlays, even as overall spending grew faster than the national economy. The report emphasizes that autopilot spending programs and net interest costs have ballooned during the same period when Congress struggled to manage the appropriations process.
To put the budget on sustainable footing, the report recommends modernizing the federal budget process to make responsible fiscal outcomes the primary objective rather than focusing on procedural compliance. The current system's dysfunction isn't improving: the 30-year gap since the last on-time appropriations process completion represents the longest stretch in the modern era. With discretionary spending continuing to shrink as a budget share while deadlines are routinely missed by months, the authors conclude that a goals-based approach would better serve fiscal responsibility than the status quo's emphasis on following prescribed steps that Congress rarely completes anyway.