I’ve chatted throughout my 3+ years blogging about some of the annoying things about working in the Foreign Service, but I think at this point the most annoying aspect of the job is the never ending “will they” “won’t they” back and forth between congress passing a budget.
In a perfect world, Congress should pass an annual budget by Oct 1st, when a new fiscal year begins. The reality is this almost never happens, and in the last half century, congress has only passed full funding appropriations bills four or 5 times.
Usually, as is the case this year, and last year, and all the years before it, Congress gets together and passes a “continuing resolution”, which basically is a continuation of the previous years budget. This kicks the can down the road so politicians can grand stand, and eventually, they pass an omnibus annual budget, often halfway through the fiscal year. The budget for 2024 was passed in March of this past year, 6 months into the fiscal year.
What this means for us on the Foreign Service is a lot of projects, trips, planning, and sectional budgets are always in limbo, especially as inflation has been worse over the last few years. A budget of $100k a year ago is fine, but the same budget today through a continuing resolution with similar obligations, is often more difficult to work with because of inflation and increased costs of labor/goods.
The most recent Continuing Resolution was also noteworthy because it contained the ongoing mandatory congressional approval of our Overseas Comparability Pay. Had this not been passed, every single US Diplomat working overseas would have seen an immediate pay cut of 22%, which I don’t need to tell you would pretty devastating to thousands of people and their families. Fortunately, it was included in the recent continuing resolution, which is good until Dec 20, 2024, kicking the doomsday clock a few months down the road.
Should congress not come to an agreement on funding, the government will then shut down and thousands of federal employees have to stop working until an agreement can be made. Since I have joined the Foreign Service I have been lucky that it has never come to this, but there was a 5 week shutdown in 2019 that took a toll on many federal employees and absolutely nothing came out of the political game of cat and mouse.
Prior to joining the government, I really never cared about this aspect of politics, but one definitely pays closer attention with the squabbling of politicians can hurt your pocket book. The next deadline to pass a budget is Dec 20, 2024. Here’s to hoping congress can get its act together and give us some good news before the New Year. -Nick
