Dive Brief:

• As an Oct. 1 deadline for passing a federal budget once again looms over Congress, the two chambers have made some progress toward approving spending but have a long way to go.
• Both chambers passed spending bills that President Barack Obama has promised to veto, with billions of dollars in cuts to Education Department spending and school-related programs.
• Among the high profile cuts are the School Improvement Grant, which offers funds for major turnaround efforts, the Preschool Development Grant, and Investing in Innovation, a program that provides funds for testing out new school approaches.

Dive Insight:

For more than a decade, Congress has failed to complete the full appropriations process, which would provide a semblance of stable funding for the 12 federal agencies. That has left the chambers to hash out short-term spending fixes and opened the budgeting process to even more political shenanigans. 

In this case, a bipartisan spending deal negotiated back in 2013 to end the government shutdown is set to expire this fall. That has paved the way for Republicans to reinstate federal spending cuts set during the 2008 economic downturn, which is reflected in both the Senate and House bills. But Obama has vowed to veto any bill that does so, which means neither bill will avert another shutdown as written. Congress is currently on its break, and when members return, they’ll have just ten days to pass a resolution to continue current spending or craft a longer-term solution.