The federal budget and appropriations process officially began on Tuesday, February 9, when the Obama Administration releases the President's $4 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2017, but less fanfare and drama are expected this year. Unlike in past years, House and Senate budget chairmen have announced they will not hold hearings with the director of the Office of Management and Budget to ask questions about the President's budget. This action is part slight and part pragmatism, since the question of how much the federal government will spend next year was already determined when the parties agreed on major budget decisions in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 last November. Budget Committee members in both chambers now question whether they need to produce a formal resolution this year, which is not required by law. Leaders are declaring that the appropriations process this year will follow "regular order," congressional parlance for allowing the twelve individual spending bills to work their way through the Appropriations Committees and get enacted separately before the beginning of the fiscal year, which starts on October 1, 2016.