On Wednesday, the House is likely to finish appropriations for the fiscal year with a vote on the last spending measure, Defense. The lower chamber will also vote to extend the debt limit temporarily, a move that will put the thorny political issue off until 2010.

In an omnibus appropriations bill quickly moving its way through Congress, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is set to receive a major funding increase for FY 2010 (which began Oct. 1). The bill sets the agency’s budget at $118 million, the highest level allowed under a separate bill that reauthorized the agency in 2008. CPSC’s FY 2009 budget was $105.4 million.

This being December, with school winding down and entering finals period, children everywhere are beginning the biannual tradition of dreading the arrival of their report card. Surprisingly, the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) oversight group chaired by Prof. Elizabeth Warren, decided to get in on the action themselves this year with their December report. Titled "Taking Stock," the latest installment of COP's monthly report looks back over the life of the program, and examines whether TARP has been effective or not. Reading the report, it looks like COP reluctantly gives the program a passing grade, but isn't entirely happy with TARP's progress so far.

A story in The Hill this morning relays an increasingly likely scenario in Congress: legislators will use an omnibus appropriations bill to finish spending work this year. The article cites the molasses-like speed at which the Senate has worked to pass its remaining appropriations bills. With the second stopgap funding measure set to expire on Dec. 18, and the Thanksgiving holiday intervening, the window of opportunity just to pass and conference an omnibus bill – let alone the four Senate appropriations bills that remain – is quickly closing.