January 23, 2026—In the United States, Congress has the authority and responsibility to manage the nation’s finances. It is tasked with passing 12 annual appropriations bills into law. More often than not, Congress fails to do its job. It routinely relies on continuing resolutions (CRs), which package several funding bills into a single bill to extend federal funding to agencies.
In a recently released report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked at the impact of Congress’s use of CRs on defense planning. In all but four years of the last 49 years, funds for the Defense Department (A.K.A. War Department) were wrapped into CRs, creating uncertainty in planning. The GAO said the result is “delays, increased costs, operational challenges, spending challenges, and administrative burdens.”
The full 55-page report looks at specific impacts throughout the U.S. military.
