Congress passed a 3-month Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the Federal Government through December. Between now and the deadline, Speaker Boehner will step down as Speaker of the House of Representatives and a new Speaker (likely Representative Kevin McCarthy R-CA) will be elected. The President is expected to veto the FY16 NDAA because of the overuse of Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds ??? which are one year funding lines, which do not count against the Sequestration caps. The President contends that the Department of Defense should not be treated separately than non-defense agencies and that funding should be increased for the entire Federal Government.
After the House elects a new Speaker, it will consider transportation and trade agreement legislation. The Senate and House Budget Committees will consider a new budget, and hopefully increase defense spending. In doing so, we will likely see a small increase in the budget caps and some sort of decrease in domestic spending programs. Once the Budget Committees finish their work, the House and Senate will reconsider the NDAA and either pass a clean budget or pass a 9-month CR ??? for the remainder of the fiscal year, ending September 30, 2016.