Congress leaves town

Congress is adjourned until after the election so members can focus on their campaigns, leaving a lot unattended to, most notably the tax cut issue. The House and Senate passed a stopgap funding measure to keep the government running before they split. Because funding was not included, implementation of some Wall Street reforms may be delayed. Both houses did approve the Obama administration’s NASA blueprint, however. The House also passed a bill aimed at the Chinese yuan (but failed to act on net neutrality) and the Senate passed a bill again outlawing animal “crush” videos after the Supreme Court overturned an earlier ban.