How did President Joe Biden engage with Congress and use executive actions during the 2023–2025 budget standoffs?

1. A Presidential Pitch vs. Capitol Hill Reality: Budget Proposals and Political Fault Lines

The Biden Administration’s public posture in the standoffs was to present a comprehensive FY2025 Budget that advocated investment in health, education, climate, and revenue increases targeting corporations and high earners, framing those proposals as fiscally responsible and aimed at deficit reduction over the decade ^{[1] [4]}. The President formally submitted budget proposals and supporting analyses—an approach that relies on Congress to enact changes into law—while the non-legislative sticking points (discrete rider demands, requested policy rollbacks, and partisan priorities) remained controlled by House Republican appropriators who sought deeper cuts and policy changes, producing recurrent reliance on continuing resolutions to avoid shutdowns ^{[1] [3]}. The CBO and OMB produced differing score estimates, illustrating how competing baselines and methodological choices fueled disagreements about the likely fiscal trajectory if either side’s proposals were adopted ^[4].

2. The Fiscal Responsibility Act as a Temporary Truce and Its Leverage on the Executive

Congress’s May 2023 bipartisan compromise, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, reset discretionary caps and defined enforcement mechanisms that shaped negotiations into 2024–2025 by cutting FY2024 authority, capping growth into FY2025, and embedding sequestration-like enforcement if caps were breached ^[2]. That law constrained the Administration’s room to maneuver on discretionary spending and introduced a formal path for automatic enforcement—an authority that places practical limits on presidential unilateralism when appropriations are not passed on time, and that made the president and OMB central actors in implementing enforcement decisions ^[2]. The existence of that statute meant much of the 2023–2025 conflict became a dispute over implementation details and waiver mechanics rather than a pure debate over budget philosophy, forcing negotiations around continuing resolutions, enforcement triggers, and which programs would be protected or cut ^[2].

3. Executive Actions: Policy Tools or Budgetary Shortcuts? Competing Claims

Republican oversight reports and House Budget Committee proposals argued that administrative changes enacted by the Biden Administration amounted to trillions in taxpayer liabilities, citing changes to Medicaid, SNAP, student loan policy, and other rulemakings as examples of costly unilateralism that bypassed Congress ^{[5] [6]}. The Administration and its supporters countered that many actions were within statutory authority, designed to improve program access and reduce long-term costs through broader coverage and revenue measures in the President’s budget—positions that led to differing fiscal score estimates between OMB and CBO ^{[1] [4]}. Independent analysts and budget groups produced contested estimates of potential savings from reversing rules, with some reports projecting large fiscal effects if executive actions were undone; these assessments hinge on legal outcomes, implementation status, and whether Congress legislates changes, leaving actual fiscal impact uncertain ^[7].

4. Tactical Use of Continuing Resolutions and the Threat of Shutdowns

When appropriations stalls persisted, Congress frequently used continuing resolutions as stopgap funding measures, a tactical choice that keeps the government open but freezes programmatic funding and reduces leverage for comprehensive bargains; Biden’s administration urged Congress to pass full appropriations aligned with its priorities but accepted CRs to avert shutdowns while pursuing both legislative and administrative policy paths ^[3]. The continuing resolution route also amplified the role of the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s caps and enforcement clauses by delaying regular appropriations schedules, which in turn increased the political salience of sequestration triggers and OMB implementation decisions if Congress failed to meet statutory timelines ^{[2] [3]}. This pattern extended into early 2025, where scenario planning—ranging from full-year CRs at FRA levels to partial shutdowns—dominated the immediate budget-policy landscape and constrained both sides’ negotiating bandwidth ^[2].

5. Oversight, Legislation, and the Long Game: How the Budget Battles Shift Authority

The 2023–2025 standoffs sharpened legislative interest in curbing perceived executive overreach via bills like proposals to strengthen Administrative PAYGO mechanisms, which aim to increase transparency and require OMB reporting on waiver determinations—a legislative countermove recognizing that when Congress can’t legislate, the executive steps in ^[6]. These oversight initiatives reflect a partisan agenda to reclaim budgetary authority and signal that future budget fights will include not just dollar fights but institutional battles over rulemaking power and scorekeeping. The resulting dynamic is that budget outcomes depend not only on appropriations math but also on litigation, regulatory timelines, and statutory clarifications—factors that will determine whether executive actions remain durable or are rolled back, and whether Congress enacts structural changes to limit administrative budgeting in future standoffs ^{[6] [7]}.