Commentary: Not Done Yet

As one of his last acts, Speaker Boehner swung a deal to set the budget levels for the current and next fiscal year. It has some gimmicky offsets, tweaks the major entitlement programs, and tells the Executive Branch they can ignore the debt limit until March of 2017. The deal is expected to be signed by the President before the Department of Treasury exhausts their tricks and hits the debt ceiling. But remember, the legislative work on fiscal year 2016 isn’t done. This deal just sets the budget levels. They still have to write the actual spending bills before December 11, when the current continuing resolution funding government at last year’s levels expires.