Congress has passed and the President has signed Wednesday another continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open while legislators continue to pore over the 2,000-plus page compromise budget bill.
The CR goes through Dec. 22, though legislators were hoping to be able to wrap up the review by the end of this week.
The CR, among many other things, extends the ban on new Internet access taxes, which would have sunset Dec. 16.
The omnibus budget bill—which includes grandfathering joint sales agreements, tax breaks for media companies, and the FCC appropriation—is expected to secure passage, but House speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had said he was going to give legislators a couple of days to check it out and had signaled another CR was likely.
It was getting a lot of pushback from various groups unhappy with the riders that were allowed on the bill—hundreds were not, which was a point Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made in saying it was a good compromise bill that should pass.
Among those that did not make the grade were network neutrality-blockers that would almost certainly have drawn Reid's ire and the President's veto.
