Congress has returned to work from a month-long break with a goal of working only until around the end of the month before adjourning for the year. While it’s questionable whether that goal will be reached, it’s widely assumed that Congress will work only a few weeks into October at the outside, a short period to deal with many issues left unfinished. For federal employees, the primary issue is the fate of the general government appropriations measure, which contains a 3.9 percent average general schedule pay raise in January, along with several potential new restrictions against contracting out federal jobs. That bill has cleared the committee level on both sides of Capitol Hill but seems destined to be included in a catchall bill. Since President Bush didn’t issue an "alternative" raise by the end of last month, the debate remains between the 2.9 percent he proposed early this year and the 3.9 percent advocated by the appropriations committees.