Congress Will Start Another Fiscal Year Without Its Spending Bills. It Has Finished Them on Time Four Times in 50 Years.

The federal government’s new fiscal year begins October 1, and Congress will reach it again without having passed any of the 12 regular spending bills that fund the government. It has passed a stopgap instead. The law, signed this month, keeps federal agencies running at last year’s funding levels through December 11.

As of late summer, the House Appropriations Committee had approved all 12 bills and the full House had passed three. The Senate Appropriations Committee had not agreed on total spending levels or approved any of them. The Senate passed its stopgap 90 to 6 on August 8, and the House passed it on September 1.

That is the normal state of things. Since the current budget process took effect in fiscal 1977, Congress has passed all of its regular spending bills on time just four times, for fiscal 1977, 1989, 1995, and 1997, according to the Pew Research Center. Since 1998, the final spending bill for a fiscal year has become law an average of 117 days after that year began. In 13 of the 15 fiscal years through 2026, Congress did not pass a single spending bill by October 1. Unless Congress passes one in the next two weeks, this year makes it 14 of 16.

Last year’s miss ended in the longest shutdown in modern history, which ran from October 1 to November 12, 2025.

Texas writes its budget under a different rule. The Texas Constitution says no bill that spends money “shall be considered as passed or be sent to the Governor” until the comptroller certifies that the amount appropriated “is within the amount estimated to be available.” The Legislature meets every two years and writes a two-year budget. The current one, $338 billion across all funds, took effect on September 1, 2025, the first day of the period it covers.

Texas cannot pass a budget its comptroller will not certify, and it had its current one in force on the first day it was needed. Washington spends about $1.37 for every dollar it collects, by the Texas Nationalist Movement’s count, and has finished its spending bills on time four times in 50 years. The deadlines Congress keeps missing are its own, written into its own budget law in 1974. It has met them four times.