CR What does CR stand for? The Free Dictionary

The federal budget is a proposal by the President outlining spending goals and priorities during a given year. Congress debates this funding, and then votes to appropriate funding. However, Congress has only completed this process before the beginning of the fiscal year 3 times in the last 47 years, most recently for FY1997. No matter what comes of the election next week, the current Congress will have a lot on its plate, including a continuing resolution that expires December 16. Short for carriage return, CR represents a carriage return done by pressing the Enter and Return key. We’re doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we’ll take care of it shortly.

Ideally, the 15 departments and other agencies that comprise the federal government would be funded well in advance of the end of the fiscal year. This almost never happens; Congress has enacted all stand-alone appropriations bills on time only 4 times in 44 years. Of note,  it used to take 13 appropriations acts – a reflection of the 13 subcommittees of the standing House and Senate Appropriations Committees – to fund the federal government.

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CRs generally continue the level of funding from the prior year’s appropriations or the previously approved CR from the current year. Full-year CRs provide appropriations for the remainder of the fiscal year and are functionally similar to final appropriations. A CR can include changes from the prior year’s budget that could (1) alter the rate at which funds are utilized, (2) extend an expiring program authority, or (3) provide a specific dollar amount of funding to a program during the CR. Education officials told us that during the CR period, they continue to announce grant opportunities, but also include language that notes that the actual level of funding depends on final congressional action. It also allows the department’s budget staff to meet the needs of individual programs by reducing some programs’ funds to cover the needs of other programs. Learn more about continuing resolutions and their potential effects on agencies and their programs by checking out our recent report.

The modern Congress serially fails to abide by the federal budget process set forth in the Congressional Budget Act, and instead often relies on stopgap legislation to avoid (more) federal government shutdowns. While CRs serve a useful purpose in providing Congress with an expeditious avenue for keeping agencies funded, they fall short of the detailed and deliberate policy choices that full agency appropriations acts contain. Continuing resolutions are temporary spending bills that allow federal government operations to continue when final appropriations have not been approved by Congress and the President. Without final appropriations or a continuing resolution (CR), there could be a lapse in funding that results in a government shutdown. In simplest form, a CR merely references expiring appropriations acts for the relevant agencies and essentially extends them. Sometimes the extension can include a percentage increase, or it could simply hold the funding rate steady, as was the case in the most recently enacted CR.

What is a Continuing Resolution and How Does It Impact Government Operations?

Changes to the structure of these committees in the early and mid-2000s eventually brought the number of subcommittees, and in turn the number of stand-alone appropriations acts, down to 12. Congress has not enacted all 12 appropriations acts since fiscal year (FY) 1997, however. Instead, Congress has relied on CRs to keep agency operations funded. Since FY1998, Congress has enacted 125 CRs to keep federal agencies funded. CRs typically serve as stopgap legislation to keep agencies funded while Congress debates full-year appropriations acts. CRs usually include additional minor programmatic adjustments known as anomalies, and as a rare legislative vehicle that will become law, frequently includes additional program extensions and other congressional priorities.

Congress tacked on two additional supplemental funding bills – one related to the Afghanistan withdrawal and one providing disaster assistance funding – to the CR. Additionally, Congress often includes program extensions and reauthorizations in CRs. For example, in the most recent CR, Congress extended policies related to federal appointments, school lunches, and fentanyl, among other policies.

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The three departments’ officials also said they look for funding flexibilities beyond the annual appropriation process, which has helped them manage the effects of CRs. For example, HHS officials said their unaccompanied children and refugee programs are two of the few programs within the department that have multi-year appropriations. They keep our government running until the CR expires or when final appropriations are enacted, whichever comes first.

• Short for carriage return, CR represents a carriage return done by pressing the Enter and Return key.
• Changes to the structure of these committees in the early and mid-2000s eventually brought the number of subcommittees, and in turn the number of stand-alone appropriations acts, down to 12.
• For example, in the most recent CR, Congress extended policies related to federal appointments, school lunches, and fentanyl, among other policies.
• However, Congress has only completed this process before the beginning of the fiscal year 3 times in the last 47 years, most recently for FY1997.

This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.

Tracker: The Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet Assets

In programming languages such as C, Java, and Perl and regular expressions the return or CR character is represented as a \r escape sequence. Today’s WatchBlog post looks at how CRs have been used since 2010, and our work on the impacts CRs have on federal operations. The American Action Forum is a 21st century center-right policy institute providing actionable research and analysis to solve America’s most pressing policy challenges. All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only.

While not an ironclad rule, members of both parties typically try to avoid government shutdowns. A CR provides a quick-and-dirty legislative solution to keeping federal agencies operating, without delving into the policy debates that presumably makes enacting full appropriations acts a challenge. Since congressional legislating is a rare event, policy initiatives are often bundled into legislation that eventually must be signed into law. For example, the congressional majority attempted to enact a debt limit suspension in the most recent CR.