Gentle readers of this Blog: The United States government continues to struggle and the following is a message the Democrats are sending to all of you. Friend -- Last month, the federal government shut down for 17 days. The Office of Management and Budget estimates that the shut-down cost American taxpayers $2 billion in worker productivity alone -- millions of people went without work and critical services were cut off. Because OFA supporters like you never stopped putting pressure on Congress, the House leaders responsible for pushing us to the brink backed down. This budget crisis hurt -- and you and I know it didn't have to happen. What's worse is that unless something fundamental changes in Washington, we could be heading toward another series of budget showdowns in the coming months. Congress still has to pass a long-term budget, and address the devastating cuts that have been in place since the sequester took effect last March. Even though it might not be on the front pages every day, we're going to keep you in the loop on where we are, and what's coming down the pike. Check out this budget update on our blog, and pass it along to anyone else you think should read it. Here are the basics of what you need to know on where budget talks are in Congress: Right now, a bipartisan budget conference committee is working to produce a long-term budget solution -- they have until December 13th to hammer out a plan. From there, Congress will have until January 15th to debate, tweak, and pass the budget to avoid another government shutdown. That's also the day that the next round of devastating sequester cuts will go into effect -- these cuts were designed to put pressure on Congress to find a solution. If they fail to pass a budget by that date, the new round of sequestration cuts will be much more severe than the ones we saw in 2013. Many government agencies still had funding available from previous years that they were able to dig into, and take steps to prevent furloughs and deep budgetary cuts -- but now, they're running out of options, and another round of sequester cuts would slow our fragile economic recovery. The bottom line is that there's a lot at stake over the next two months. Congress needs to step up and pass a long-term budget that addresses sequester cuts and grows our economy from the middle out. We'll keep you posted on what happens after the conference committee deadline in December. But for today, make sure to check out this blog post, and pass it along to the folks you know who need to stay in the loop. http://my.barackobama.com/Budget-Update-Blog Thanks -- more soon, Nico Nico Probst Director of Special Projects Organizing for Action ---------------- The other side will spend millions to maintain the status quo. We're fighting for change -- chip in $5 or more to support OFA today.