The Daily Fuckup

Congress did what Congress usually does when a shutdown deadline gets too close: it bought time. On September 25, 2024, the House and Senate passed a short-term spending bill that keeps federal agencies funded through December 20 and pushes the next full budget fight past Election Day. President Biden signed the measure on September 26.

The bill was not a grand fix. It was a stopgap, a way to keep the lights on while lawmakers put off the larger arguments over fiscal 2025 spending. The House cleared the measure by a wide margin, 341-82, and the Senate followed on a 78-18 vote. The result avoided an immediate lapse in funding, but it left the main dispute untouched for later in the year.

The package also carried an extra $231 million for the Secret Service. That money came after the agency came under fresh scrutiny following the July 13 rally shooting in Pennsylvania and another apparent attempt on Trump’s life in September. The added funding was meant to cover protective operations during the 2024 campaign and other high-security events.

There was political tension around the bill, including criticism from Trump, who had pressed Republicans to load the measure with his own demands. But the vote itself was a congressional decision to avert a shutdown, not a breakthrough in budget discipline or a clean resolution of the underlying fight. Lawmakers simply traded one deadline for another.

That is the pattern here. Washington avoids the immediate mess, declares victory, and returns to the same unresolved problem a few months later. The September deal kept agencies open and gave the Secret Service more cash, but it did not change the basic math: Congress still has to finish the budget, and it still has a habit of waiting until the last possible minute to do it.