Republicans in Congress, in order to avoid a backlash from core supporters this November, are on a path to make harmful budget cuts under the cover of a "continuing resolution" and a post-election "lame-duck" session. Only two of 12 appropriations bills -the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense spending bills - are even close to passage, and both should receive hefty allotments that will crowd out spending in the remaining appropriations bills. In a joint-chamber conference last week, legislators hammered out a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the Defense appropriations bill. The $447.4 billion spending package is $5 billion above the Senate’s version - $5 billion that, under this year's tight budget cap will have to be made up for in cuts in other areas. Programs in the Labor-Health and Human Services (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill will likely feel the brunt of these cutbacks. Neither the House nor the Senate has passed a Labor-HHS spending bill, but a version passed by the House Appropriations Committee gives us some idea what to expect. It would eliminate funding for 56 individual programs, including important assistance to students, children, and community organizations. Earlier this year, Congress vowed against these cuts when both the Senate and the House added billions to the allotment for Labor-HHS programs in the Congressional Budget Resolution. Moreover, these cuts could have been avoided altogether had Congress waited for a supplemental appropriations bill to provide the extra $5 billion in defense funding. A supplemental bill would not have required being offset by slashing other program budgets. Avoiding making hard decisions about budget priorities by using supplemental appropriations bills is not a particularly responsible budgeting practice, but neither is forcing Congress to vote on program cuts after an election in a lame-duck session. None of the remaining 10 appropriations bills will be passed before the election, and this failure will make all-but-inevitable budget cuts go largely unseen by the voting public on election day. The end result is Congress will make unpopular cuts to important programs by removing the opportunity for the public to hold them accountable. What makes this deplorable situation even worse is that it could easily have been avoided. Congress could have spent more days actually working this year. The Senate leadership could also have made appropriations bills a legislative priority. Instead, GOP leaders chose to focus what little time they had on polarizing, election-year legislation to score points with the GOP base (e.g. flag burning and anti-gay marriage amendments) while the core work of Congress went unfinished. Meanwhile, the start of the new fiscal year is only five days away, and without a stop-gap funding measure, most federal programs will run out of money on Oct. 1. To avoid a shutdown, Congress must then pass a continuing resolution (CR) before it adjourns. The CR will fund federal programs until Congress can finish its appropriations work - most likely in late November. The level at which this CR would fund programs is still up for debate. One proposal would fund all programs at the lowest of three levels: either the FY 07 funding level passed by the House or that passed by the Senate, or the FY06 (current) funding level. Any of those options could produce short-term cuts for important domestic programs. A similar CR substantially cut programs last year. Congress could also include an across-the-board cut to all programs covered under the CR as they did last year. Congress has fulfilled few of its fundamental fiscal obligations this session. It has chosen instead to wait until it is politically convenient to do what it otherwise could not -- slash investments and resources many Americans count on.