The Senate will be in recess during the entire Columbus Day week, October 8-12. The House will be in recess Friday, October 5, and the following Friday, October 19, but will be in session on Tuesday, October 9 through Friday, the 12th.
House Leadership also announced that November 16 is its scheduled adjournment date, although there is wide speculation that Congress have to stay later, perhaps into late December in order to complete its appropriations work.
On Saturday, September 29, President Bush signed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through November 16. The CR was necessary because the current fiscal year expired on September 30 and no FY 08 appropriations bill had been passed and/or signed into law. To date, the House has completed work on all 12 of its appropriations bills, while the Senate has only completed four. None have been reconciled between the House and Senate and sent to the White House. To complicate matters, the rhetoric between the President and the Democratic-controlled Congress has intensified, with the President threatening to veto any bills if their funding levels are higher then the Administration's 2008 budget request.
If the debate drags on through November, and even into December, the spending bills could be combined into a large omnibus measure rather then passed individually. Alternatively, there could be a stand-off between Congress and the President, shutting down the federal government, as occurred in 1995.