The senate majority party manipulates the way that budgets are brought to the floor, in order to protect its own members

Last year, the U.S. government shut down, and its debt ceiling was very nearly reached because of budget gridlock in Congress. When a budget agreement came, it was in the form of an ‘omnibus’ spending bill, which covered what would have otherwise been a number of appropriations bills. In new research, Peter Hanson finds that over the past 40 years, the Senate majority party has been able to exercise its power and shift towards this type of omnibus legislation in order to limit its exposure to difficult votes and ease the passage of the budget.