End of Fiscal Year Approaching

By: fedweek

The current fiscal year ends September 30, and as in most years, political leaders have made only partial progress toward enacting the spending bills needed to keep agencies operating in fiscal 2008. The House has passed each of the 12 appropriations bills but the Senate has passed just three, with one more in progress this week. The situation has spurred a round of rumors inside the government about possible agency shutdowns, particularly since the White House and Congress are far apart on some of the measures and veto threats hang over many of the bills. The government has experienced such shutdowns in the past, with resulting furloughs of employees deemed “non-emergency,” but it hasn’t happened since the autumn of 1995 –which resulted in a harsh political fallout — and there’s a general expectation on Capitol Hill that a shutdown will be prevented once again.