Tuberville is optimistic that regular budget order can be restored

December 20, 2024 – the U.S. Senate passed a continuing resolution (C.R.) sent to them by the U.S. House of Representatives just hours earlier. This avoided a partial government shutdown before Christmas and kept the government funded until March at which time the Congress will have to take up another C.R. or an omnibus to keep the government funded until the next Congress imposed fiscal cliff. The state of Alabama does not work like this, no rational business works like this and historically the U.S. government did not bounce from C.R. to C.R. to C.R. The failure to pass the 13 appropriations bills and a 12-month budget that goes into effect at the start of the fiscal year – October 1 – is a function of poor leadership and an inability for the two parties to work together to handle the nation's business.

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville expressed optimism that with Republicans now in control of both Houses of Congress and with President Donald J. Trump soon to return to the White House that regular order can be restored to the budget process.

"Since the Democrats have been in control since I have been here. All they have done is kick the can down the road," Sen Tuberville told Alabama journalists and reporters recently. "At the end of the day they want an omnibus where they can get all the things they can get their hands on. They want to force Republicans to vote for it and pass it. I have not voted for one. I won't vote for one. We have to get back to what we call regular order where you have the appropriations groups of all the Committees."

Tuberville stressed the importance of the new Senate (along with the House of Representatives) starting the 2026 budget process early in the next Congress – while they write the funding bill for the last six months of the 2025 fiscal year to get caught up.

"You have to start early," Tuberville explained. "You can't wait until August to start it. You have to start it in January. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will be the chair of appropriations, and I think we will have a great opportunity to do our homework and hopefully approve it sometime in July, instead of waiting until the end of the year."

Tuberville blamed Democrats for the repeated fiscal cliff deadlines. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) never brought even one of the thirteen 2025 appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate.

"But again the Democrats are holding the American taxpayer's hostage, because they want everything they can possibly get in there," Tuberville charged. "They want to pay the bills for all of these radical mayors and governors in these blue states."

"I don't know how many times we have bailed California or New York out because they don't know how to make a budget," continued Tuberville. "There is so many things that go wrong up here and this is at the top of the list. President Trump is adamant that we are going to do things the right way."

Tuberville expressed disappointment that Congress delayed aiding the people who were devastated by the two fall hurricanes and farmers because of their incessant wrangling over the budgets.

"Get this thing done early so we don't have to go through a process like this," concluded Tuberville. "It has been an embarrassment to our country that we do things like this to the American farmer, the hurricane devastation, to FEMA, all the people who needed money we could have given it to them earlier in the year. But again, you can't run a business like this. We are going to go broke if we don't change our ways. President Trump has got to do it and I am all for him."

One contributor to the never-ending cycle of budget cliffs is that a C.R. or an omnibus goes around the normal budget process and instead puts the entire process in the hands of the leadership. Last week the leadership announced that they had reached a 1,500-page budget deal to keep the government funded. Only the negotiators in the room knew what was in it. After conservatives in the House balked at some of the provision, President Trump and billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk produced a conservative alternative. Democrats and moderate Republicans balked at that plan so it was voted down in the house. In the middle of the day on Frida Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) announced a new compromise version without many of the Trump additions. That passed both Houses later that night. Nobody ever read the thing in its entirety. The House voted on it six hours after it was produced, and the Senate could not change or amend it without leading to a government shutdown that likely would have dragged on well into January. Regular order, done properly, allows all 535 members of Congress to have input into what is or is not in the budget rather than a handful of powerful negotiators who in many cases are serving their own interests rather than serving the interests of the whole body or the nation as a whole.

Tommy Tuberville was elected to the Senate in 2020 defeating incumbent t Sen. Doug Jones (D).

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