Back in May, I pre­dicted a series of likely bud­get con­fronta­tions fac­ing Con­gress late this year or early next: the expi­ra­tion of the pay­roll tax hol­i­day, the need to again raise the debt ceil­ing, expi­ra­tion of the Bush tax cuts, the seques­tra­tion of funds man­dated by the last debt ceil­ing deal, the annual Octo­ber 1 end of the fis­cal year, and pos­si­ble moves on spend­ing, Social Secu­rity, and Medicare. Last week, I gave an update deal­ing with seques­tra­tion, and another update this week on votes con­cern­ing the Bush tax cuts.

These impor­tant issues might go in unex­pected ways. Yes­ter­day, in a rel­a­tively quiet no-​​drama bipar­ti­san deal, lead­ers of both Houses and both major Par­ties reached agree­ment to keep the fed­eral gov­ern­ment run­ning until after the Novem­ber elec­tion. It’s but a six-​​month con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion, which means they’ll have to come back to the sub­ject next year, but they got it done two months early instead of wait­ing until well after the last minute.

This may point in some new direc­tions, though I doubt we’re about to see a bed of roses. Well, maybe the thorns part. (more…)