On March 9th the Senate rejected both proposed spending plans, the one crafted by the House, HR 1 and the Amendment offered by Senator Inouye (D-HI).  The current short-term spending plan expires on March 18th.  If there is no agreement on spending the government will shutdown.  To forestall this, the House is drafting another short-term measure - with additional spending cuts.  What is unclear is what the dimensions of the upcoming budget negotiations will be - will they be focused just on the domestic annually appropriated or will they look at the entire federal budget.