Congress left for its annual August recess without passing any of its 12 fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations bills, creating an uncertain outlook for how the process will proceed this fall. While the Senate Appropriations Committee approved all 12 of its bills, the House Appropriations Committee moved only 10 of its 12 measures, withholding full committee markup of the Commerce, Justice, and Science and Labor-Health and Human Services-Education bills. Further complicating the prospects for action on final FY 2024 spending measures is that the House and Senate committees are marking up their bills using different topline discretionary spending numbers — the Senate using the full amount allowed by the recent debt ceiling agreement and the House voluntarily using a lower topline level. It remains to be seen how the two chambers will reconcile these differences, with a continuing resolution (CR) almost certain to be necessary to keep the government functioning prior to the start of FY 2024 on October 1. Negotiations over final FY 2024 spending bills are likely to extend late into the calendar year, if not into 2024. In the meantime, follow along with the process using our FY24 appropriations tracker, linked here.