Last week I explained that the federal government is operating on a temporary spending bill called a continuing resolution instead of a real budget for fiscal 2013. That continuing resolution expires on March 27. If lawmakers don't pass new legislation the federal government will shut down on March 28. Here's what's happening.

News about the federal budget is almost impossible to follow, so here’s some straight talk about whether or not there’s a federal budget for 2013 and why things are even worse than they seem.

The legislation introduced yesterday would extend the current spending bill through the end of the fiscal year – in other words, Congress is proposing to go through this entire fiscal year without passing an actual budget. However, this new legislation did include an actual budget for just two areas of government – Defense and Military Construction-Veterans Affair.

Greg from Portland, Oregon e-mailed last week and asked, “The House just passed a major spending bill. Does this mean the big funding cuts for education I’ve been hearing about won’t happen? I’m a teacher, and we’ve been hearing all sorts of scary [stuff] about these cuts.”What Greg is referring ...

The House, the Senate, and President Obama agreed on something. Surprised? Well, technically they agreed to agree on something in the future. Several weeks ago, leaders of the House and Senate announced they’re planning to pass a continuing resolution in September in order to fund the federal government past Sept. 30, which is the last day of fiscal year 2012. If lawmakers don’t pass any spending legislation by that date, the government will shut down on Oct. 1 when fiscal 2013 begins.

On July 31 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced that they had reached an agreement on a temporary spending bill – known as a “continuing resolution” (CR) – that will fund government operations for six months starting when the new fiscal year begins ...

With the end of the current fiscal year rapidly approaching, what many Washington watchers have long predicted appears to be true – Congress will not act on next year’s budget by the October 1 deadline.“But wait,” you’re saying, “October is a long way from now. How can you be sure?”

td p { margin-bottom: 0in; }p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { } Friday, April 8, the House of Representatives and the Senate worked until almost midnight to draft and pass legislation to keep the government open. This seventh Continuing Resolution cuts another $2 billion from the FY2011 budget in the ...

Late Friday night, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and President Obama reached agreement on a spending bill that will fund the last six months of Fiscal Year 2011, which ends on September 30, 2011. The agreement is actually two bills -- a seven day continuing resolution that will allow time ...

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { } On February 19, 2011 the House of Representatives passed the Republican majority's version of the Fiscal Year 2011 spending bill, which contains funding for the entire federal government through the end of September. 162 amendments were offered during consideration of the bill and ...