Congress Completes FY 2013 Appropriations

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives approved a short-term continuing resolution bill that will pay for the operations of the U.S. government through this September, the end of the 2013 fiscal year. The Senate had approved the bill Wednesday, meaning it has cleared Congress and now goes to President Obama, who has promised to sign it when he returns from the Middle East. The continuing resolution authorizes discretionary federal spending for the next six months. If Congress had not approved it by March 27, when the current CR expires, government agencies would have had to shut down.

The continuing resolution leaves in place the across-the-board cuts, known as sequestration, which effectively sets non-emergency discretionary spending authority for the year at about $984 billion after sequestration is taken into account, down from $1.043 trillion in fiscal 2012.