So Congress has passed and Obama has signed yet another continuing resolution to extend funding to keep the government running for another two weeks, until March 18, 2011. This is the fifth such extension. The previous ones provided stop-gap funding until December 3, then December 18, then December 21, and then March 4.

These ad-hoc actions are because Congress has still, six months into the fiscal year that began n October 1, 2010, not only not passed a budget but not passed even one of the twelve appropriation bills.

We will now be subjected to another tedious spectacle of wrangling as the March 18 deadline looms, which will likely result in another temporary extension.

How long will they keep kicking this can down the road? It is quite incredible that the world’s biggest economy is being run like a struggling mom-and-pop store, not knowing whether it can pays its bills from week to week.

Complicating things is the fact that this not the only contentious budgetary issue. There is also the debt ceiling of $14.294 trillion which is now predicted to be reached some time in April or May. Expect to see another circus around that issue. There is no doubt that it will be raised (because the oligarchy will demand it) but it is an issue that allows for a lot of demagoguery and who can resist that?