Washington ? Congress is lagging far behind on the budget bills it is supposed to finish by Oct. 1 and what’s worse, huge federal deficits have roared back. With pivotal elections nearing for control of the House and Senate, how are lawmakers responding?

As it turns out, by doing very little.

Four straight years of budget surpluses have come to a screeching halt, with a $157 billion deficit expected this year and more red ink looming after that. Yet President Bush and legislators of both parties have offered no plans for reducing the ever-growing projected shortfalls.

As for the 13 spending bills financing federal agencies for the budget year that begins in three weeks, lawmakers have completed none. Initial versions of five have passed the House and three have been approved by the Senate a tortoise-like pace even for Congress, which routinely ignores the deadline.

The chief culprit for the fiscal torpor is the overriding attention policy-makers and the public are paying to terrorism, a possible war with Iraq and the limp economy. With people focused on their personal finances and safety, lawmakers hear from few constituents in a lather over the federal budget, and feel free to focus on other priorities.

“Without a public outcry or a high-profile advocate to force the issue, politicians are quite happy to let it get swept under the rug,” said Ward McCarthy, a financial analyst in Princeton, N.J.

Coloring everything is the approach of the Nov. 5 elections. Neither party wants to antagonize voters by proposing spending cuts or tax increases needed to close budget gaps that few members of the public seem concerned about.

And with the Republican-led House and Democratic-run Senate deadlocked over what the spending bills should cost and the House paralyzed by internal GOP disputes over the proper price tag neither party wants to do anything that could hand the other a pre-election advantage.

As a result, neither chamber is likely to finish much more than the defense and military construction spending bills before recessing next month for campaigning. That would leave 11 of the so-called appropriations bills for a likely lame-duck session after Election Day, or perhaps even until the new Congress takes office in January.

“I don’t know that. We’re going to keep plugging away,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Thursday, asked when the Senate would finish the spending measures.

Rather than spending bills, the Senate has focused on high-profile but time-consuming legislation like one creating a Department of Homeland Security.

“At the rate we’re getting legislation out of the Senate, and with some of our problems getting appropriations bills done, we’ll be here” in November instead of adjourning for the year, said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

On deficit reduction, Bush set the tone when the budget he sent Congress in February projected federal shortfalls but no proposal for eliminating them.

He offered no new plan when estimated deficits got worse this summer, and lawmakers from both parties followed suit and advanced none themselves.

Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged lawmakers to renew expiring rules that help keep the budget balanced. But highlighting the reduced pressure legislators feel to control deficits, he added, “Our underlying fiscal situation today remains significantly stronger than that of a decade ago.”

Back then, the red ink was about the same size as today’s, but it was far larger compared with the overall economy, a ratio that many economists consider crucial.

Deficit reduction was a major political issue that then-President Clinton and Congress could not ignore. Today’s politicians, instead, have voted repeatedly for new tax cuts and more spending for defense, domestic security, prescription drugs, farmers and battling wildfires.