It looks like congress will go home for vacation leaving more than half of the annual appropriations bills unfinished.

From Congressional Quarterly; Midday update:

OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL FILED IN HOUSE, BUT SENATE VOTE MAY WAIT UNTIL JANUARY

Republican appropriators filed a massive, seven-bill fiscal 2004 omnibus spending bill (HR 2673) in the House today after nailing down final agreements on a $4.5 billion set of offsets to finance congressional and administration add-ons. Members are slated to vote on the measure Dec. 8, but a Senate vote likely will not occur until January. That would mean most federal agencies would have to operate at fiscal 2003 levels until then. "This turkey is filled with stuffing," Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., told the Senate. "But few members know what is in the stuffing." When agencies finally do get their 2004 funding, most domestic ones will have to absorb a 0.59 percent across-the-board cut in their budgets. The rest of the offset -- $1.8 billion -- would come from trimming unspent funds from a supplemental (PL 107-38) enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.