Discussions continue today between the White House, Senate, House of Representatives and the two political parties to come to terms on a long-term Continuing Resolution (CR) which would fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. The current short-term CR will expire this Friday, April 8th and the hope is that a deal can be negotiated by the end of the week. If a long-term CR is not passed by Friday, the House is preparing an additional one week CR that will extended government operations until April 15th.
If no long-term CR agreement is reached by Friday, and no short-term CR is passed by the House, the federal government will shut down and a majority of federal employees will be furloughed and prevented from working even on a voluntary basis. If you have pending business with a federal agency that you were expecting to conduct next week, you should reach out to your contacts as soon as possible to understand potential impacts on your specific program, and steps to take in the event a government shutdown does occur.
In addition to the continuing negotiations around the remained of fiscal year 2011, the House Republicans unveiled their 2012 budget outline yesterday. You can read their proposal at http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/.