Are there unintended consequences from Congress’ use of continuing resolutions (CRs), which are designed as short-term funding to bridge the period before regular appropriations are completed? During a CR, agencies are restricted in their ability to issue contracts, and after the CR ends, agencies may rush to complete their contracting before the fiscal year ends. To expedite contracting, we hypothesize that CRs encourage agencies to use sole-source contracts, rather than on a competitive basis, as well as to use cost-reimbursement contract designs, rather than fixed-price contracts. The Obama Administration found that these contracting practices result in “wasted taxpayer resources, poor contractor performance, and inadequate accountability for results . . .” We anticipate that the longer a CR is in effect, the greater the incentive to use sole-source contracts and cost-reimbursement contract designs. There are implications both for future attempts at contracting reforms, as well as for efforts to establish automatic CRs.

国会使用持续性决议（CR）会产生意想不到的后果，这些决议旨在作为短期资金，以弥合常规拨款完成之前的时期？在CR期间，代理商的合同签发能力受到限制，并且在CR结束后，代理商可能会急于在会计年度结束之前完成合同的签订。为了加快签约，我们假设CR鼓励代理商使用独家合同而不是竞争性合同，并使用成本补偿合同设计而不是固定价格合同。奥巴马政府发现，这些签约做法导致“纳税人资源浪费，承包商业绩不佳以及对结果负责不足”。。。” 我们预计，CR生效的时间越长，使用独家合同和成本补偿合同设计的动机就越大。这对未来进行合同改革的尝试以及建立自动CR的努力都具有影响。