The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have released the fiscal year 2014 omnibus appropriations bill that combines all 12 regular appropriations bills into one package to reduce the number of votes lawmakers need to take to set funding levels across the federal government. A stopgap spending bill will move to avoid a government shutdown before the omnibus itself is up for a vote. This omnibus would be the first bill in years where Congress has deliberately tweaked and set spending levels – spending for the last few years has generally been on autopilot with “continuing resolutions” simply extending prior fiscal year funding levels.