In Congress – like baseball – there's always next year

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It is sometimes said that "politics and sports don’t mix."

But frankly, politics is dotted with sports. And sports is utterly loaded with politics.

Which brings me to the intersection of politics and sports. The end of the regular baseball season is near. The Cincinnati Reds (my team, by the way), just fired their manager, David Bell, after a disappointing season. There are still a handful of games left in the season. Other teams will likely show their skippers the door soon. Look for possible vacancies in Colorado, Miami, Toronto and perhaps the Los Angeles Dodgers – depending on how they fare in the postseason.

But the Reds are a special case. There were high expectations with star players Hunter Greene and Elly De La Cruz. Lots of speed. Fresh talent. With one of the best starting rotations in the game, some believed the Reds could win the division and maybe even compete for the National League pennant after years as also-rans.

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But next to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Reds are the most disappointing team in Major League Baseball. The Reds have been churning in a continual "rebuilding" cycle since 2013. They haven’t won a postseason playoff series since 1995. The Reds haven’t appeared in the World Series since 1990.

Wait till next year, they say.

Which brings us to Congress and its appropriations bills.

It's hard not to see the parallels between politics and sports – particularly when congressional leadership's annual struggle to fund the government coincides with a time of reckoning for many a struggling MLB team. (Left: Bonnie Cash/Getty Images; Right: Jason Mowry/Getty Images)

The end of the government’s fiscal year aligns nearly perfectly with the baseball season. The final day of the government’s fiscal year is September 30. The last day of the regular season in baseball falls on September 29. A few teams will march into the playoffs. But most, like the Reds, will saunter home for the winter.

Such is the case with Congress.

Since the 1990s, Congress has struggled to approve its 12 spending bills to run the government on time. That’s led to various political standoffs between the parties, a few protracted and ugly government shutdowns and little success. There’s been almost zero reform by Congress toward passing the bills in a timely fashion for decades – despite constant promises from bipartisan lawmakers to do better next time.

Sound familiar, Reds fans?

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The House of Representatives edged right up to the deadline of a possible government shutdown around this time last fall. After the House stumbled, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., finally put forth a straightforward bill to just fund the government at current spending levels with no ad-ons until early November. The government remained open. And even though McCarthy excoriated Democrats for failing to pass individual spending bills by the book when they were in the majority, Republicans didn’t do much better. In Fiscal Year 2023 (when Democrats controlled Congress), the House approved six individual spending measures. The Senate: zero. In Fiscal Year 2024 (after Republicans claimed control of the House), the GOP-led House passed seven bills. The Senate: three. For Fiscal Year 2025 (what Congress has been working on now), the House approved five bills. The Senate: nada.

When House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., assumed the Speakership last October, he wanted the House to continue to work on individual spending bills to do things "by the book." All the while, Congress – with Johnson’s blessing – kept adopting stopgap bills to fund the government. That ran all the way until this past April. Johnson told members he’d continue to push for passage of individual spending measures for Fiscal Year 2025 (which begins October 1).

Despite routine adoption of stopgap bills throughout the Johnson speakership, the House quickly found itself in an all-too-familiar position –and in July, even failed to secure enough votes to fund itself. (Aaron Schwartz/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Again, the House had moderate success – but nothing special. It approved five appropriations bills: Defense, Energy & Water, Interior, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs and State/Foreign Operations.

In an embarrassing vote on July 11, the House failed to approve the "Legislative Branch" appropriations bill. In other words, the House failed to even fund itself. Jokes abounded around the Capitol that Congress was teaching itself a lesson. Perhaps Congress didn’t deserve to receive its annual allocation.

So Congress finds itself in a similar position this year. In the fall of 2023, conservatives heckled McCarthy for not keeping Congress in session during the August recess to tackle appropriations bills. There is similar hectoring from Republicans this time.

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"I think this is a complete failure of the Speaker’s strategy," complained Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. "We weren’t here in the entire month of August. We could have finished our 12 separate appropriations bills."

So now Johnson is forced into the same corner that McCarthy found himself this time last year. The House will vote on an interim spending bill just to keep the lights on. It’s notable that Johnson even wanted a bill to run through next spring. But the best he could manage was a measure which runs through December 20. Among other reasons, Johnson pushed for the longer spending bill because he didn’t want a "Christmastime omnibus" spending bill.

That may still happen if lawmakers can’t advance some of the bills between now and mid-December.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia castigated the "complete failure of the Speaker’s strategy" amid recent government funding woes. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

But this is similar to what we saw last year. And when it comes to appropriations, the same movie repeats itself. Like McCarthy, there could be calls from some conservative quarters to remove Johnson. Especially if Republicans maintain control of the House. The mid-December funding date really puts Johnson in a bind – if he’s to stand for re-election as Speaker on January 3.

This is where we find a nexus of politics and sports.

Cincinnati Reds fans have endured promise in season after season. The potential of catcher Devon Mesoraco was dashed after he made the All-Star game in 2014 – and then suffered a debilitating hip injury.

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The Reds dealt ace starting pitcher Johnny Cueto to Kansas City during one rebuild. Two of the pitchers the Reds received as "compensation" went a collective 4-24 for the Reds with ERA’s of 5.44 and 6.25, respectively.

Cincinnati traded flamethrower Aroldis Chapman to the New York Yankees in 2015. For Chapman, the Yankees coughed up Caleb Cotham, who is now pitching coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. A knee injury forced Cotham to retire. In exchange for Chapman, the Reds also received Rookie Davis. Rookie Davis promptly demonstrated he was best suited for rookie league ball and not the bigs. Davis compiled a 1-3 record and an 8.63 ERA for Cincinnati.

You get the idea.

A "management" change in the House – be it Republicans ousting Speaker Johnson or Democrats seizing control of the chamber – may take place in the next Congress. (Getty Images)

We don’t know who the Reds might hire as their new manager. But as they often say, the best predictor of future performance is past performance. So, despite a few promising players, cynical Cincinnati fans aren’t optimistic that things will be any different under new leadership next season.

Which brings us back to where we stand in the House and spending bills.

There will be a promise to do better next year and get the bills done on time. However, the political realities of that dynamic might prevent that. There may even be a change in the "management" – be it efforts to oust Johnson or Democrats winning control of the House.

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Either way, people who study Congress know there’s not a lot of promise that the fall and winter of 2025 will be any different than this year – or the past several years – when it comes to finishing the spending measures on time and averting a government shutdown.

But you never know. As they say in baseball, there’s always next year.