The 109th Congress of the United States opened last week, with much of the fanfare surrounding GOP pre-session planning (particularly ethics committee rule changes) and the decision of a few Democrats (including Senator Boxer from California) to hopelessly challenge the presidential election results from Ohio during the electoral college count on Thursday.

The FY 2006 federal budge, scheduled to be released in February 2005, is important now because federal agencies are already making decisions prior to submitting their individual budgets to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in September. The Bush administration has proposed cutting the budget deficit in half over the next five years, while John Kerry has proposed that he will do the same in four years. Because neither presidential candidate seems willing to cut funds from the Defense or Homeland Security programs, there is going to be considerable pressure for them to cut non-defense discretionary spending.

After much speculation, and on the final day of the fiscal year, the House and Senate passed a continuing resolution (CR) (H.J. Res. 107) to fund non-defense government programs and agencies, and other expiring programs, at current levels through Nov. 20. The CR was needed because Congress failed to perform one of its key duties on time -- the appropriation of funds for government programs. Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) observed, "The Republicans' failure to pass appropriation bills on time has real-world consequences to real people, to states, localities, municipalities, and every individual."

As Congress reconvenes today, the Defense Bill remains the only completed appropriation bill for FY 2005. The $417.5 billion bill was approved only just prior to the August recess. Members of Congress have a lot of work ahead of them if they wish to complete their appropriations work before the end of the fiscal year, which ends on September 30th, as only three other bills -- Homeland Security, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction -- have even made it through a full Senate committee.