From Washington, D.C., this week comes fresh evidence that our 18th century governmental institutions may no longer be adequate to the task of ruling our society.

Exhibit One is the national budget. Specifically, the lack thereof. The federal government operates on a fiscal year running from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, and every year Congress is supposed to adopt a budget resolution that outlines its spending priorities and then to pass 12 detailed appropriations bills in order to fund the various operations of government. And they are supposed to pass them all before the start of the new fiscal year.

This year, the Senate never bothered to approve a budget resolution at all, and as of Oct. 1, not one of the 12 appropriations bills had become law. Not a single one.

Instead, the government is operating under a “continuing resolution,” an agreement that permits agencies to keep spending essentially what they have been spending for some period of time, until Congress either does its job of enacting appropriations legislation or punts again by enacting another “CR.”

Or fails utterly and allows the government to run out of money.

For the record, we’re already on continuing resolution No. 2 this year. The first took us through Oct. 4; the second promises to fund government through Nov. 18. No points for guessing that each CR was enacted at the last minute — the first, on Sept. 30; the second, on Oct. 4.

The “power of the purse” — the power of Congress “to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” according to the words of the Constitution — is the first and most important power the Congress possesses.

Even the great powers “to raise and support armies” and “to declare war” are meaningless unless Congress finds a way to pay the troops and to fund the wars they declare.

Failure to enact a budget is failure to govern.

At a time when resources are limited and when we desperately need to streamline and reform the operations of government, failure to enact a budget guarantees more governmental waste, drift and dysfunction.

The president must bear some share of responsibility for this failure, because the president proposes a budget to the Congress, because effective leadership from the White House can help move legislation through the Congress, and because the president’s power to approve or to veto legislation gives him a share in the legislative process that produces a final budget.

This year’s presidential budget, however, was dismissed as a non-starter and basically ignored even by the Democratic leadership of the Senate. Since that initial presidential failure, all the budgetary action — or, rather, inaction — has been the work of Congress.

Which is as it should be because the Congress was designed by the framers of our Constitution to be the center of gravity in our political system.

Unfortunately, with two houses of Congress and divided partisan control of the body, it is not obvious whom to blame. Is it the fault of the House Republicans, who control the majority there? The majority Senate Democrats? The minority Senate Republicans, who have used their power to filibuster to obstruct Democratic priorities at almost every turn?

All of them? But if they are all responsible, no one in particular is — and there is no one whom we can hold accountable.

If congressional failure to produce a budget were only a consequence of divided government, it would be bad, but we might hope for a day soon when both houses of Congress and the presidency were in the same partisan hands.

A divided government in 2008 led the Democratic Congress to govern by CR until after the presidential election, which they (rightly) expected to win.

But in 2010 and 2011, years of unified Democratic government, Congress did little better. The 2010 appropriations were not completed until a quarter of the fiscal year had already passed. And 2011 was even worse than 2008-09: Final budget action, in the form of a full-year continuing resolution, was taken on April 15, more than halfway through the fiscal year.

Divided government complicates budgeting, but because the problem has persisted, regardless of partisan control, it is clear that there is a deeper problem.

It may be that there is too much work to do in the time allotted, and that Congress would meet its deadlines if it took two years to budget for the succeeding two years.

It might work. But then, could anyone get such a proposal through Congress?

Joseph R. Reisert is associate professor of American constitutional law and chairman of the department of government at Colby College in Waterville.