The Budget and Rule of Law
The rule of law has been murdered—it is dead, or close to death. And the prime suspect is the very body that writes laws: Congress.
Think the rule of law is important? Then the joke is on you.
The rule of law has been murdered—it is dead, or close to it. And the prime suspect is the very body that writes laws: Congress.
In 1974, Congress passed The Congressional Budget Act, a law prescribing a proper, formal annual budget process that features separate itemized appropriations bills that are supposed to be passed on time like clockwork.
Congress didn’t have to create this kind of law binding on itself, but it did.
According to its own law, Congress is supposed to present a budget resolution by April 15, followed by 12 (or 13, pre-2001) appropriations bills—with line-item details and costs—that should be debated, adjusted if needed, and signed into law by October 1.
The last time Congress followed its own legal script was in 1996 in preparation for Fiscal Year 1997—almost three decades ago! Let the date sink in.
That 1996/97 followed the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994, when Republicans won a House majority for the first time in four decades. A Republican House and a Republican Senate—with Newt Gingrich as the face of Congress—produced an actual, proper budget per the timeline established by The Congressional Budget Act.
Since then, it’s been a parade of stopgap resolutions and bloated omnibus bills, tossed together like a legislative junk drawer, which raises a question: If Congressional lawmakers don’t obey their own laws, why should anyone else obey their laws?
But here’s the punchline: Republicans now have a golden opportunity. With the House, Senate, and White House under their control as of January 2025, they’ve got a rare shot to resurrect the moribund budget process.
For the first time since October 1996, Republicans can show Americans what a real, transparent, itemized budget looks like—not a midnight cram session, not another ridiculous resolution that continues all the bad spending programs from the prior administration—but a deliberate, line-by-line explanation of what precisely government is going to do (and hopefully many constitutionally illegitimate activities government won’t do any longer), why, and how much of your money it is going to spend doing it.
And Republicans better make it count because Americans are fed up with excuses.
This isn’t just about process—it’s about power. Republicans can wield their trifecta to slash spending with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, targeting waste and bloat the incoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already sniffed out. DOGE’s mission is to hunt down fraud and inefficiency, and early chatter points to billions in fat—think Pentagon boondoggles, redundant agencies, and grants to nowhere. A proper budget could turn those findings into action, cutting spending of your money where the numbers don’t add up.
Take the Department of Education: $80 billion a year, yet student scores flatline and in many cases drop, while admin costs balloon. DOGE likely has a file on that. If they don’t, I do and I am happy to give them a copy.
Or the IRS, which received a $20 billion boost in 2022—partly to hire 87,000 new agents—while audits hit the middle class harder than tax-dodging elites. Wasteful? Unnecessary? Fueling bureaucratic power trips? Of course. A Republican budget could zero out those excesses, redirecting cash to taxpayers or paying down our ridiculous national debt.
And don’t stop there—hundreds of programs, from obscure climate grants to overlapping welfare offices should be axed. Republicans should go further. The Constitution doesn’t authorize most of what our federal government funds with your money. Where’s the clause for funding international quangos or policing your thermostat? Agencies like the EPA or the National Endowment for the Arts live in a gray zone, gobbling billions without any clear authority in the Constitution. Add Medicare and Medicaid to the mix of unconstitutional, unjust, and wasteful spending while we’re at it.
A proper budget could shrink or kill these off, forcing a reckoning: If it’s not enumerated, it’s not funded. That’s not just fiscal—it’s philosophical, a return to the constitutional first principles the GOP preaches endlessly.
There’s no constitutional reason why the federal government should be involved with things such as health care or health insurance, and the government certainly should not be handing out grants of other people’s money to crony charities, universities that mock virtue and insist there is no truth, and other organizations that should be privately funded by the people who value them.
This is the moment Republicans should remind Americans of the simple, hard truth upon which our nation was founded: Bad things happen and that’s precisely why family, friends, and tight knit communities of fellow citizens are so important. We should help each other, voluntarily, rather than begging overpaid unelected government bureaucrats for assistance.
When it comes to funding activities outside the constitutional boundaries of the federal government, let citizens donate to the causes that are important to them, individually. You value medical research? Then send as much of your own money as you want, as often as you want, to medical research organizations.
Just because you feel something is good, doesn’t mean it should be in the budget of our national government, which should be focused on national defense and not much else.
Americans are the most charitable people on Planet Earth. They love to give and to help others. Imagine how much more they’d give—and how much more help they’d provide for others—if our government stopped confiscating so much of what they earn.
The opportunity is here, now. In the coming months, with FY 2026 looming (October 2025 start), Republicans can draft 12 crisp appropriations bills each with line items the public can actually read. No more thousand-page omnibus surprises slipped in at 2 a.m. Imagine a budget that says, “Here’s $700 billion for the Pentagon, minus $10 billion in redundant bases,” or “HHS gets $100 billion, but not a dime for that failed app.” Transparency like that could rebuild trust—or at least spark a real fight worth having.
Will they seize it? History says don’t hold your breath—Republicans are quite good at shooting themselves in the foot and betraying their Constitutional oaths. And, pork is addictive, as every Republican who has been in Congress for more than twenty years knows all-too-well.
But with DOGE barking and voters watching, the pressure is on. FY 1997 was the last budget in which Congress played by the rules Congress set for Congress; FY 2026 could be the next. Republicans have control—time to ride or get bucked.
Dr. Krannawitter, You’re absolutely right—the failure of Congress to follow its own budget law continues to diminish trust in government and the very principle of the rule of law. Republicans now have a pivotal opportunity to began restoring both.
With a president who grasps the dire consequences of unchecked financial irresponsibility, has the skill to assemble an executive team capable of managing a budget while rooting out waste and fraud, and is committed to shaping a future that fosters freedom and prosperity, there’s every reason for those of us who value liberty to be optimistic.
Hey Thomas, I’ve listened to you personally in Denver and I’ve read your book on how to be a successful bureaucrat. Please keep speaking out about the congressional mess that seems to be self perpetuating. I’d love nothing more than Congress being held accountable to the U S Constitution. I’d like to see the bureaucracies dismantled and anyone who works for the government to be required to be elected for the position. Keep up the excellent writing!