House to Finish up Appropriations, Push Other Fiscal Business to Next Year

On Wednesday, the House is likely to finish appropriations [2] for the fiscal year with a vote on the last spending measure, Defense. The lower chamber will also vote to extend the debt limit temporarily, a move that will put the thorny political issue off until 2010.

The FY 2010 Defense appropriations measure will likely become another mini-omnibus for Congress, as some on Capitol Hill expect the bill to include provisions extending unemployment benefits, subsidized COBRA health insurance and a short-term, continuing resolution (CR) that would continue to fund the Pentagon through Dec. 23 or Dec. 24. The current CR [3] expires on Dec. 18, which would not be enough time for the Senate to also debate and pass the last spending bill.

According to a Congressional Quarterly (subscription required) article [4], the House will also extend the U.S. government's debt ceiling by roughly $200 billion. This would prevent the government from defaulting on its debt for a couple months and provide the Democratic leadership and the White House time to discuss the creation of a debt commission [5], a demand some dozen conservative Democratic senators are currently making in return for votes to increase the debt ceiling substantially.

Image by Flickr user Kevin Burkett [6] used under a Creative Commons license.