Congress Has Leftovers for New Year’s

The new Congress that formally convenes today faces budgetary work left over from last year in addition to the regular workload. Last year Congress managed to enact regular fiscal 2007 appropriations only for DoD and DHS, leaving the rest of the government operating under a series of temporary spending measures called continuing resolutions, the latest of which expires February 15. That measure generally funded programs at the lowest of three levels—the 2006 rate, or either the House or Senate number for 2007—and many agencies are feeling the effects of the funding squeeze, although OMB has authority to allow them to reprogram funds to avoid furloughs. The new leadership has signaled that it does not expect to take up individual spending bills but rather will pass another continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year. They have said they will take a more line-by-line approach to setting spending levels in the upcoming measure, which could provide relief for programs and even entire agencies that have been squeezed by the measures so far.