Earlier today, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee unanimously approved Jack Lew, Obama's nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Lew must now wait for the Senate Budget Committee, which has yet to schedule a vote on the nomination, before his nomination can proceed to a floor vote.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Gen. David Petraeus, the recently installed commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has released a new set of guidelines for commanders in the field to follow when utilizing contractors. While broad, the guidelines – if vigorously implemented – may end up blunting many of the worst unintended consequences that often result from contingency contracting in a war zone.

Tomorrow at 9 AM, the Senate Budget Committee will be holding a hearing on Jack Lew, President Obama's nominee for Director of Office of Management and Budget, a position which has been open since Peter Orszag stepped down in late July. I'm expecting most of the questions posed to Lew will revolve around debt/deficit issues, since, during his time as President Clinton's last OMB director, he was the last director to oversee a budget surplus.

With Congress returning from its summer break next week, the appropriations process should begin again as well. Since Congress has been gone for the past few weeks since we last updated you, there isn't anything new to report. But! Never fear, we have been using this time to revamp our patented AppropriationsWatch^TM. We moved it over to GoogleDocs, allowing us to add links, which you can click to see the relevant documents for each appropriations bill. And, moving over to GoogleDocs makes it easier for you, the audience, if you want to copy the table and play around with the numbers. Want to see what happens if you cut Department of Defense spending in half? Go right ahead.