Congress spends a good chunk of its year on Capitol Hill slogging through the 9-month process of creating and passing a budget. The president kicks off the marathon with a budget proposal in early February and - on the rarest of years - a final budget is passed by October 1 when the fiscal year begins (more often, the process gets dragged out to December - or Congress gives up on the effort entirely).

For 2009's budget, hill watchers are already predicting that we may not see a budget until next January, when the Democratic leadership in Congress hopes to have a president that will sign off on its spending ideas. Their ability to do so means they have just about zero incentive to negotiate with President Bush to compromise on budget priorities. For that reason, this year citizenJoe doesn't even bother parsing out the president's proposed budget (but you can read up on the dailies' reporting).

The House and Senate revealed their first budget drafts - the "budget resolution" - in March, which they may vote on the week of March 10. The budget resolution is used as a blue print for the budget committees who write up the details of final spending bills.