Why Congress So Rarely Passes Government Funding Bills on Time

Since 1977, when the current system for government budgeting went into effect, the US Congress has passed all of its spending bills by the fiscal year deadline only four times. During that period, the government has shut down due to the lack of funding either fully or partially at least 20 times.

In this video, we look at how the current budgeting process is supposed to work and the way it actually plays out most of the time, and try to answer why it's so hard for the federal government to fulfill one of its most basic functions: funding itself on time.
(producer: Tanya Lukyanova; senior producer: Andrew Satter; executive producer: Josh Block)

Follow Bloomberg for business news & analysis, up-to-the-minute market data, features, profiles and more: http://www.bloomberg.com
Connect with us on...
Twitter:   / business  
Facebook:   / bloombergbusiness  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake/?...