A Congressional Quarterly article (subscription) published this afternoon puts to rest recent rumors that Congress won't enact a budget resolution this year, quoting Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) that he has a "green light" from leadership to put something together. In his remarks, though, Conrad claimed he would produce an "aggressive budget" with deficit projections well below what the White House's budget proposal forecasts.

According to a Bureau of National Affairs article (subscription) published today, the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Oversight Board publically released its recommendation on the FY 2011 budget this morning. Submitted to the House and Senate appropriations committees last month, the recommendation requests 2.2 percent more funding for the agency than President Obama proposed. The additional resources would go toward taxpayer services and operations support.

Recent press reports have indicated that the "high road" contracting process may be gaining momentum, possibly foretelling adoption of the policy by the Obama administration. Last week, Government Executive published several stories on the topic, including an article on congressional members requesting a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the costs and benefits of adopting "high road" contracting guidelines, and a story outlining documents obtained by GovExec that they purport give further details on how the administration might implement such a policy.