On Budget Decisions, It’s See You in December

After recessing next week, Congress will have only two weeks before its next budgetary deadline, the need to fund agencies beyond December 11. An agreement reached in late September extended prior spending levels through that date in order to buy more time to craft a spending plan for fiscal 2016, which by then will be more than two months old. Some movement has been made on regular appropriations bills since that agreement but the general expectation is that few if any of them will be enacted individually and that a wrapup “continuing resolution” will be needed. However, policy differences that brought the threat of a shutdown then have not been resolved, raising the prospect of more brinksmanship ahead–and more shutdown warnings from some, answered by calming words from others. Congress plans to adjourn for the year December 18, raising the prospect of a short extension to buy still more time if the December 11 deadline isn’t met. In some recent years budget decisions have been kicked over into the early in the new year. Mainly at issue are general spending levels–including how to allot new funding the September agreement provided–which in turn drive employment levels and determine how much is available for employee programs such as training and incentive payments. There has been no indication that the projected average 1.3 percent federal raise in January is in jeopardy. That raise will take effect by default unless a law to the contrary is passed by the end of December.