I Can't Believe It's Not Budget

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Published January 22, 2018 at 4:16 PM EST

Congress is on the verge of a deal that will end the partial government shutdown. But that deal will only keep the government open for a few weeks.

There's a bigger underlying issue here: Year after year, Congress fails to pass a budget in time.

Today on the show: Why this keeps happening, and why it's a problem.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith