Ok, do the President and Congress usually get the budget in place by October 1?
Unfortunately, they don’t always do that. In fact, in recent years, it’s pretty unusual for all of the appropriation bills to be enacted before the start of the fiscal year. 5. What are the consequences of letting those bills slip? Well, if no appropriations are provided at all, it really means that a number of programs would have to shut down. You close down national parks, there are a lot of activities that simply won’t happen. Now, let’s be clear that certain emergency or very important activities like Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers — they don’t go home at the stroke of midnight if an appropriation hadn’t been provided. But for many federal programs, if nothing has been done, federal employees can’t come to work, they can’t do their jobs. 6. Do you expect a government shut down this year? No, I don’t think that’s going to happen at all. What usually happens is, in, say the normal circumstance where not all of the appropriation bills have been done, Congress
