Congressional Road Block

It appears that Congress has decided to step back from the brink of ruin, and is now working toward agreeing to a set of bills that will fund the operation of the U.S. government for the rest of FY 2012. The current Continuing Resolution was set to expire at midnight the other day. Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle had been quietly working towards this agreement in a largely bi-partisan effort for the past several weeks, but as the deadline drew near, the impulse to self-immolation kicked in and arguments broke out around all sorts of issues. (For you political junkies, there's an interesting story at Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70471.html) that details some of the intricacies of the potential budget agreement.) As you know, President Obama has appealed for end to partisan politics. In the end, however, political realities took over and it looks like something moderately acceptable will be worked out, possibly as soon as Saturday. It's still not clear how the Department of Education's money will be parceled out, but it appears that the overall cut to the Department's budget will be pretty minimal.