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Continuing Resolution Released

House Republicans have released a draft of their six-month continuing resolution (CR) that contains few policy riders and would increase spending slightly for most federal agencies by just over half a percent for the first half of FY2013. The House plans to vote on the CR (HJ Res 117) this Thursday, and would run through March 27, 2013 and its spending reflects the $1.047 trillion cap set for discretionary spending set in the 2011 Budget Control Act (PL 112-25). The increased spending would be divided up as a roughly 0.6 percent across-the-board increase for nearly all federal agencies. Some exceptions would carve out additional dollars for covering the costs of the presidential inauguration, while the current pay freeze for federal employees would remain intact. The CR also would provide increased dollars for fighting wildfires and addressing a backlog of disability claims at the Veterans Affairs Department, along with allowing the launch of new weather satellites to move forward.