After a 16 day shutdown, the federal budget agreement  delays any tough spending decisions for a few months.

• Federal spending will continue at current levels for all federal programs through January 15.
• The debt limit has been extended to at least February 7.
• A House-Senate budget committee has been appointed with the task of creating, by December 13,  a broad spending blueprint for the rest of the fiscal year, and possible instructions to find entitlement savings and increases in revenues.
• Based on the budget blueprint, the House and Senate would have until January 15 to enact legislation to appropriate funds for the remainder of the fiscal year. Entitlement and revenue issues would not have to be resolved by then.     
• The overall allocation of funding for Labor-HHS will be part of the budget package due in December, with spending for individual programs left to the appropriations committees.
  • The Senate Appropriations Committee adopted its FY 2014 bill in July and it was essentially a 'status quo' budget.
  • The House Appropriations Committee did not mark up its bill, but it is 26% lower than the Senate counterpart.
  • The budget conferees would have to compromise on an overall Labor-HHS spending level for the House and Senate appropriations committees to follow when making the actual programmatic allocations by January 15.
• Programs needing reauthorization (TANF & SNAP) have been extended through January 15.
• All federal program funding is retroactive to October 1.
• To the extent a state used state funds to backfill federal programs, they will be reimbursed for those expenditures that would have been federal expenditures if it were not for the federal shutdown.