The real issue behind the shutdown: Our federal budget process is broken

My latest in the Pierre Capital Journal.  Here's a snippet:

We govern by crisis.  Budgeting is supposed to be a deliberative consideration of the nation’s priorities.  Instead, we consistently find ourselves acting out of anxiety due to impending shutdowns or, related but distinct, debt limit ceilings.  The “grand bargains” that result are not really budgeting; they are sloppiness caused by panic.  

In Federalist #1, Alexander Hamilton famously asked whether free government can act out of “reflection and choice” or whether it is doomed to act by “accident and force.”  Our budget process much more resembles “accident and force” than “reflection and choice.”