In 1974 Congress changed the government's fiscal year. Title V of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 was signed into law on July 12, 1974 and changed the fiscal year to begin on October 1st starting in the following year. Why change it from December 31st? Ostensibly to give Congress more time to pass the budget.
Since then, Congress has successfully performed it's budgetary responsibilities only four times in a timely manner. In the last fifty years Congress completed the budgetary process with the President's signature only four times.
Americans are justifiably concerned our Constitution will go the way of the Passenger Pigeon and become just as dead and thus a useless document. I would argue that the House of Representative's Constitutional "power of the purse" requires they submit, from time to time, a budget to the President. Failure to submit a budget on time 46 out of the last 50 years erodes our Constitutional Federal Republic.
I would argue the budget is a core responsibility of the House of Representatives spelled out in the Constitution. Something as important as it gets and Congress continues to blow it off.
PS The other day I was asked what issues in America concern me the most. My response was simple... "The attacks on the 1st and 2nd amendment." The comment I got from the person asking me the question was: "Oh like the attacks on the 3rd Amendment?" I didn't remember that the 3rd Amendment was needed to stop the government from quartering troops without permission in my home during peace or during war unless prescribed by law. His point? The quartering of troops lives in the dustbin of history... Exactly where the 2nd Amendment belongs.
Ouch!
