CONGRESS/SPENDING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump insisted he will never again sign a huge catchall spending measure of the sort he just grudgingly approved to fund the government. But he will probably have little choice if he wants to keep the government open in the future. The steady deterioration of the congressional appropriations process makes it extremely unlikely that this president, or any future president, will ever receive the annual spending bills the old-fashioned way — one or two at a time with the opportunity to reconcile policy disputes with Congress without shutting down the entire government. Given the current state of political warfare and congressional dysfunction, the too-big-to-veto omnibus bill seems here to stay, absent some momentous change in culture and process.”
-Carl Hulse, “Broad Spending Bills Here to Stay as Long as Congressional Dysfunction Reigns,” The New York Times online, Mar. 30, 2018