By Kelsey Snell, WASHINGTON POST
If nobody on Capitol Hill celebrated in July when Congress approved transportation funding for three months, it’s because lawmakers bought themselves a little time at the expense of what could be a truly awful autumn.
When Congress returns from its August recess, it faces a tangle of fiscal deadlines that could serve as a replay of some of the most contentious battles of the past five years. Those include keeping the government open amid fierce disagreement over spending caps put in place by the so-called 2011 sequester, finding a long-term way to fund highway and transit projects and lifting the debt ceiling before default.