After posting “Emergency Unemployment Benefits Are Not Forgotten” on our blog on Feb. 26, the Center for Effective Government received close to 100,000 page views and over 1,500 comments. Many of those who posted comments were people who had seen their emergency unemployment benefits cut and who are struggling to keep their lives together.

There is still a jobs crisis in this country, and the individuals who wrote to us are on its front lines.

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.

Yesterday evening, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced a budget proposal to replace a portion of sequestration cuts. The plan would allow the continuation of cuts to Medicare, increase user fees, and make it more expensive for government employees to save for retirement.

The House is expected to vote – perhaps as early as this afternoon – on the Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth Working Group Act of 2013 (H.R.3273), a bill that would establish a committee of ten House members and ten Senate members charged with making recommendations to resolve the current stalemate over the government shutdown and looming debt ceiling crisis.