What Happened?
Congress repeatedly pushes its hardest budget decisions to the lame duck sessions that follow elections. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reviewed appropriations measures across three decades to document the pattern.
The CRS report covers 16 Congresses, from the 103rd through the 118th, and tracks regular appropriations measures enacted during post-election lame duck sessions in odd-numbered fiscal years from 1995 to 2025. Fifteen of those 16 Congresses held a lame duck session; only one skipped it after the 1996 election.
In 10 of those 15 sessions, lawmakers passed no regular spending bills at all. At least one continuing resolution has been enacted in every fiscal year since 1998.
Why Does it Matter to Me?
When Congress leaves spending work unfinished, the next Congress inherits it, and the 119th Congress has been operating under a full-year continuing resolution, a temporary funding measure, rather than individually crafted spending bills.
Three fiscal years saw complete failure during both the lame duck and the period before it, forcing the next Congress to handle all 12 spending bills from scratch: fiscal years 2011, 2013, and 2025. The most recent example: the 118th Congress's lame duck session passed only one temporary funding patch, leaving all 12 fiscal year 2025 spending bills to the incoming 119th Congress. That Congress resolved the situation on March 15, 2025, by passing a single full-year continuing resolution rather than 12 individually crafted bills.
Both Sides, Now
Lame duck sessions rarely resolve spending disputes, which often leaves the incoming Congress to finish the work.
Opponents say the pattern does the opposite. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that a funding lapse in October 2013 furloughed about 850,000 federal employees for 16 days. That same fiscal year, the CRS noted, none of the regular spending bills had been enacted on time.
The Trump administration inherited the unfinished fiscal year 2025 budget from the 118th Congress's lame duck session and has been operating under a full-year continuing resolution since March 2025. Congress holds the power to pass individual spending bills; the administration can sign or veto what lawmakers send.
What Happens Next?
The 119th Congress inherited 12 unfinished spending bills for fiscal year 2025, which were settled through a full-year continuing resolution, a temporary funding law, enacted March 15, 2025. The CRS report found that in 10 of 15 post-election lame duck sessions, Congress enacted no regular spending bills. The House Appropriations Committee holds the first step: drafting and advancing individual spending bills before another deadline forces another temporary patch.
Will Congress break the three-decade pattern, or will lame duck spending deferral repeat itself in 2026?
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