On September 28, 2016, the U.S. Congress passed a 10-week continuing resolution spending measure that would fund the government and all of its programs at Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 levels until December 9, 2016.

The U.S. House of Representatives returns from recess on November 14, 2016, and the U.S. Senate returns on November 15, 2016, for a lame duck session. The major must-pass item on their agenda for the remainder of the 114th Congress will be the 11 remaining appropriations bills to fund U.S. federal government agencies and programs for the balance of FY 2017 (i.e., through Sept. 30, 2017), in order to avert a government shutdown. This will likely need to be done through an omnibus spending bill, but if an agreement can’t be reached on a massive spending package, another continuing resolution might be necessary. The dynamics of those negotiations likely rest heavily on the outcome of the November elections.