Who cares about the Budget?

At 9:20pm EST tonight, the president signed the Interim Funding Resolution of the 147th Presidency. Two days prior, this same resolution was given to the Senate to debate and scrutinize, and to make any amendments they deemed necessary. What amendments were made? None. Let's talk about the what, the why, and the how come.

First, let's talk about why the resolution was proposed in the first place. Every two weeks, coinciding with the presidential terms, the president has to create a budget and send it to the speaker, who then proposes said budget. The president has to make a budget every fourteen days pursuant to the Rolling Budget Act of 2025. The budget determines how much the government is authorized to spend for that budget cycle, and is necessary for the government to function. It is for this reason that both the Executive and the Senate both work to pass the budget through. However, the two branches usually disagree on what the budget should look like.

Many moons ago, in the 143th Presidency, the budget was a major political event, where scandals arose and senators on all sides of the aisle had their opportunity to grandstand and shame the executive for the budget they've proposed. This political theater was then usually met with an ocean of amendments, altering the budget to the Senate's liking, which was usually contested by other senators who aligned with the administration. Being the foundation of scandals such as the NCIA scandal (Where, under Matty's administration, the budget allotted 15,000t for "contracting" which primarily paid the NCIA, which essentially acted as an OHS), the budget was a time where each new president was tested, and where the rest of the President's term could largely be predicted, at least in terms of how eventful or uneventful it will be.

So, if the budget was so eventful, so important, and such a great predictor for the rest of a president's term, what does the most recent budget cycle tell us? Well, it's likely going to be a slow term. With zero amendments and little debate, there were very few issues, at least from the Senate's perspective, with the most recent budget. A common trend being seen in the budget process is "when in doubt, cut it out," where every cycle the budget gets lower and lower as the President cuts more and more to make the budget more appealling. This spells bad news for future administrations, since it is unlikely that they will be able to continue to find places to cut, and so they will likely have to battle the Senate over the question of  "why is the budget so high?" once a President is forced to raise the budget due to overcutting from the previous administration. However, for now, the trend is working in the executive's favor. Unlike the Thyme Administration, the Matty Administration, and the Presidents in between, this budget got away without a scratch, having zero amendments before being passed unanimously with seven votes, all in support of the resolution. 

How could this happen? Well, after two tumultuous weeks under the Thyme Presidency, where political battles were a dime a dozen, and after two hottly contested confirmation hearings in the begining of the Zepz Administration, we now see a phenomenon called "political fatigue." This is when, as a result of constant political fighting, over-advertising, or just constant and intense exposure to hostile or partisan politics, voters and politicians alike will likely grow tired of the fighting, and will therefor tolerate more before they put up a fuss. For this reason, we are likely to see little to no open political battles for a fair amount of time, likely a couple days or more. Due to this political fatigue, along with the budget being lower than the last term, there is little energy or cause for any senators to contest what seemed to be an all around good budget. The fatigue is likely to disappear once the next senate settles in, as the next speaker is not yet certain, and it is likely to be a contested position for the first time in two weeks. In all likelyhood, we should expect the next budget to be a bit more interesting.