Per a report today in Congressional Quarterly, House and Senate Appropriations Committee chairs Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) told their respective leaders House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) this week: While progress is being made with ... two [out of 12] major bills, we want to reiterate our commitment to moving each of the individual appropriations subcommittee conference reports at the earliest possible date this year. In terms of appropriations bills passed to date, right now there's one down, 11 to go. Almost everyone involved in the budget process in Washington assumes that a lame-duck session of Congress will take up the FY 2007 budget in an omnibus bill. But this would circumvent the regular order appropriations process and thus undermine Lewis and Cochran’s considerable authority. Lewis and Cochran have a stake in the regular order and it can be expected to try to pursue it diligently. But with FY 2007 less than a week away, now they tell us they want to?