Approaching a half year back in control over Washington, Republicans still lack decent prospects for securing their first meaningful legislative accomplishment — and so they’re anxiously casting about for something productive to do with their summer.

But their most readily available option, trying to create at least the appearance of restoring some regular order to routine appropriations, is essentially guaranteed to generate little beyond disappointment.

President Donald Trump and his nominal congressional allies have fallen so far behind the budgetary schedule that it’s already impossible for them to recover in time to avoid a pileup of political distresses, fiscal hostage-taking, blown deadlines, temporary fixes and bureaucratic uncertainties come fall.

The policymaking void, of course, is only magnifying the attention on the oversight Congress has committing itself to — investigating alleged Russian interference in last year’s election and exploring whether Trump’s campaign was a party to it, starting with Thursday’s potentially blockbuster testimony by fired FBI Director James B. Comey before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

A long slog through the next round of the budget wars would probably still be in store, even if the deeply factionalized GOP could come together behind a grand total for the amount Congress should parcel out for the coming year. And that would be likely even if the White House could definitively decide whether to avoid or embrace another period of toxic brinkmanship before an obligatory increasing of the federal borrowing limit.