Julian E. Zelizer: Is This Any Way to Do a Budget?

Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter," published by Times Books, and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, published by Princeton University Press

House Republicans are planning to hold a symbolic vote on the debt ceiling to demonstrate that Democrats don't have the votes to pass the measure without accepting stringent spending cuts. The vote is part of a larger drama that has played out this year over the federal budget.

Temporary budgets, threatened government shutdowns and debt ceiling crises are slowly becoming part of the normal vocabulary of Washington politics.

The fact is that Congress has a major budgeting problem. We have entered into a period where crisis budgeting is becoming normalized. Congress makes decisions over spending and taxing through a temporary, ad hoc process and by constantly invoking draconian threats of bringing the government, and the economy, to a total standstill. This is no way to make major decisions over the future of our federal programs or the fiscal health of the government.

Congressional budgeting has always been difficult. For much of American history the process was extraordinarily decentralized and inefficient. There have been numerous moments when Congress tried to reform the system....

But in the past few years, it has become evident that the budget process is not working. The problem is not simply the substance of the budget -- an issue on which both parties have legitimate disagreements -- but the process itself....