A shutdown was averted. So what happens now?

The government is open this week, after having wasted who knows how many days of work in recent weeks preparing for a shutdown. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave up on his previously failed demands for dramatic budget cuts and new draconian border policies, and worked with Democrats to save the country from another pointless shutdown—for now, that is. The reprieve lasts until Nov. 17, and the underlying fights that brought Congress to the brink of disaster Saturday have not been resolved.

That leaves just over six weeks for both the House and Senate to finish their work on 12 appropriations bills, meet in conference, reconcile all of those bills, pass them, and send them to President Joe Biden’s desk. In that time, they also need to take care of the things that expired on Oct. 1, most critically the reauthorization of the farm bill. Since aid to Ukraine was left out of the stopgap funding bill, that will have to be taken care of as well. The magnitude of this challenge makes it likely that the country will face another shutdown threat the week before Thanksgiving.