After a five week hiatus, lawmakers will be returning soon to Washington for one final legislative sprint before the November elections.

Eight months of partisan bickering has put incredible pressure on the 110th Congress to just pass the annual spending legislation that is constitutionally required. Zero of the 12 spending bills that fund the federal government are finished. The House has only passed one, which is one more than the Senate. This is a budgetary train wreck that has already left the station.

To make matters worse, this inaction guarantees a massive year-end, omnibus spending bill. This legislation will have everything in it but the kitchen sink, and will be stuffed with troves of special interest provisions worth billions. If recent history is any indication, the thousands of pages long legislation will be dropped in the laps of members mere hours before they are expected to vote on it.

But that’s not all that’s on Congress’ plate. All summer they have been dithering and chest thumping about the energy crisis and what to do about sticker shock at the gas pump. The short answer to the question is: not much. In fact, it’s hard to see anything that Congress could do in that short period that would be constructive for both consumers and taxpayers. But it’s easy to see how it could be just a feel good effort to sway voters that ends up costing taxpayers and further harming energy markets.

A third item that is likely to come up in the September rush is yet another emergency spending bill. Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV) envisions this $25 billion piece of legislation providing funding for the California wildfires, the Midwest flooding, more for Hurricane Katrina, and any other disasters that come up between now and then (in the wake of Hurricane Fay and with the storms Gustav and Hanna approaching) and a slug of undefined infrastructure funding intended to be an economic stimulus.

These emergency spending bills are like fly paper for all sorts of end of term goodies that lawmakers can ballyhoo in their re-election campaigns. The real issue is that every year there is some disaster somewhere that costs something, so while we can’t tell if it’s going to be floods in the Midwest, fires in the West, or Hurricanes in the Southeast, we need to better budget for emergencies instead of running to the till for every incident. And our continuing response to Hurricane Katrina, while important, is no longer unexpected and should be included in ordinary appropriations and budgeting. Any emergency spending bill in September should be limited to true immediate emergencies and not larded up with political party favors.

Congress needs to concentrate on getting the spending house in order during those three weeks in September. Moving all of the 12 spending bills to the President in a responsible fashion will be a first step. Even if the President vetoes those bills, Congress will have sent the message to voters that they intend to stop batting each other’s heads like political piñatas and get to work.

If unsuccessful, lawmakers will have to skip town to run to be re-hired for jobs that they didn’t get done in the first place. Explaining to the voters how they are going to get that job done would be a good first step.