It’s late September and Congress is back to doing what it does best—kicking the can down the road. Lawmakers adopted a Continuing Resolution funding the government through December 20th. They avoided a government shutdown and left town for a month of campaigning. But the long list of unfinished business will still be here after November 4th. Congress can dodge, delay, and defer, but eventually they have to deliver.

This week’s Continuing Resolution marked a rather undramatic finish to the latest bout of drama. The bill extends the whole government at basically 2024 spending levels. It’s mostly “clean” as in it has very few anomalies. Where it does differ from the current year is in authorizing funds in accounts needed for the upcoming presidential transition, security for next January’s inauguration, and increased Secret Service spending on presidential campaigns. Notably it sticks to the security and non-security spending caps set in last year’s budget deal. And it’s not loaded with any number of non-spending priorities some lawmakers called for (changes to voting regulations, a farm bill, etc.)

This cleanliness, which is a virtue, might just make the post-election spending debate that much harder. The bill doesn’t authorize new emergency spending across accounts. This despite FEMA reporting the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) would fall short of cash for 2024 disaster response and a projected $15 billion shortfall in accounts the Veterans Administration uses to pay benefits to veterans. It also fails to include the $21 billion in “emergency” defense spending Senate appropriators had sought. Adoption of the CR allows these agencies to access Fiscal Year 2025 funds starting October 1, so the agencies will see no disruption in service. But spending 2025 funds on obligations incurred in 2024 means they are just delaying the inevitable. Barring an influx of new money, or an unexpectedly calm year for disasters, the DRF will again fall short of cash. Lawmakers will have to increase spending or reduce spending elsewhere. It’s not a question of if, but when. Ditto for the VA.

Lawmakers also seem to be betting that the math will get easier after the election, but it may just be harder. Speaker Johnson (R-LA) has declared the era of massive omnibuses of all dozen spending bills to be over. But there are just likely too few legislative days in 2024 for the House and Senate to finish their respective bills, hammer out a compromise, and vote on each of the 12 bills on their own. And while last year’s “laddered” omnibus, where the least contentious spending bills were extended to January 19th and the more contentious ones extended through February 2nd, would not be one omnibus, such a strategy might not fly this year.

There are also a number of other pressing policy issues that may take attention away from finalizing 2025 spending bills. Agricultural interests have a renewed push for adopting a lame duck Farm Bill. Their latest push is to an expensive supplemental spending package to go along with the five-year bill. Hurricane Helene is reviving people’s interests in a natural disaster emergency supplemental. And members on both sides of the aisle are chaffing under the 2025 spending caps. So, any final spending bills will see an effort to abandon or adjust those caps; a rerun of the last two years of spending debates.

And the truth is the politics aren’t likely to be any easier. The November election won’t necessarily make things clearer. With a photo finish expected in the presidential race and razor thin majorities expected in the House and Senate, it could be days or even weeks before final results are in. Pending shifts in control for the 119th Congress will greatly affect any incentives to deal.

A lame duck Congress has come early this year. Usually, we have to wait until the election to have one, this one started this week. Maybe it started last year when Speaker McCarthy helped broker the debt ceiling deal and planted the seeds for his ouster. Whenever it started, there aren’t a lot of signs Congress will get any less lame between now and December 20.

It’s tempting to say sayonara to the 118th Congress. But they still have real work to do. They should buckle down and finish the job they all auditioned for. They have one final assignment. Get it done. And if you really don’t want to do it again, step aside and let someone else deliver for taxpayers.