As budget impasse drags on, government agencies operate in limbo

Source: The Washington Post

This is America, on the installment plan.

For 177 days now, the longest period in 14 years, the U.S. government has operated without a budget. Congress is mired in a spending fight, with Democrats and Republicans arguing over what to cut from the budget and by how much. Each party sees its soul at stake.

Absent an agreement to fund the government until the end of the fiscal year in September, Congress has passed six short-term stopgap measures, one after another. The current one lasts until April 8.

The short-term extensions have kept the lights on. But the uncertainty over whether the two sides will eventually reach a long-term budget deal has done its own damage, producing waste and inefficiency as a massive federal bureaucracy tries to live paycheck to paycheck.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-budget-impasse-drags-on-government-agencies-operate-in-limbo/2011/03/22/AFWVQbYB_singlePage.html