More Wrangling Over Spending Ahead

By: fedweek

A stopgap funding bill that continues agency spending levels at current levels through November 16 effectively buys more time for political leaders to decide how they’re going to handle the budget for the fiscal year that began Monday. Expectations are widespread that while Congress and the White House might be able to agree on some of the 12 regular appropriations bills for the year, a few or even most of the measures might end up getting combined into a catchall bill to provide funding for the remainder of fiscal 2008. Among the pending bills is the financial services-general government bill that specifies a 3.5 percent average general schedule pay raise for January 2008. The White House has threatened to veto many of the bills—including that one—over policy and spending issues, and a resolution of the disputes isn’t expected anytime soon.