It’s bad enough that Congress — instead of doing its job by passing appropriations bills to finance government operations for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 is, once again, relying on a stopgap spending bill that will keep the lights on only through mid-December. But it’s far worse that House leaders — at the urging of the White House — are using that bill as the vehicle for a major foreign policy decision: arming and training Syrian rebels to fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the extremist Sunni group known as ISIS.

The Obama administration says giving aid to Syrian rebel groups — unlike airstrikes by American forces against ISIS in Iraq — requires congressional approval. That permission is needed under Title X of the United States Code, which regulates the armed forces. The administration sees the continuing spending resolution as the most convenient vehicle for an aid vote.

If the resolution doesn’t pass, the government will shut down at the end of this month, which neither party wants to happen before midterm elections. But, by including the assistance to the rebels as an amendment to the spending bill, as Republicans are planning to do, lawmakers will have to choose between paying for the rebels and shutting down the government.

That may put House members on the record on Syrian aid, but the amendment would probably not require its own vote in the Senate. Voters need to know whether all of their representatives supported the aid on principle or out of necessity. The vote on the Syrian aid should be entirely separate from the spending bill.
On its merits, the rebel-aid amendment drawn up by House Republicans is actually worthy of support, because it would demand answers on which forces in Syria would be getting equipment and training. Under the provision, the secretary of defense would have to submit a detailed plan disclosing the moderate groups that would get the aid 15 days ahead of time, and the plan would have to be updated every 90 days. The background and past links to terror groups of every individual in the groups would have to be checked. The authorization would expire on Dec. 11, when the rest of the spending resolution does, and would face a renewal vote in the lame-duck session of Congress after the election.

It would also include a provision making it clear that the spending bill does not authorize a prolonged war in Iraq and Syria, an issue that probably will also be debated in the lame-duck session. Far too many Democrats and Republicans are afraid of casting a clear vote on this issue before the elections, preferring to hide behind the shield of a spending bill.

The polarization of Congress has made it impossible to do long-term planning or budgeting, so that even basic operations of government are financed through stopgap measures. Beginning a war requires a much larger vision.