Thanks to a compromise agreement struck last Wednesday between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, a federal government shutdown has been averted - but only temporarily. The compromise, which will cut $4 billion from federal spending, will only fund the government through March 18. President Obama and Congress remain under pressure to create a more permanent solution for funding government spending through September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

On Friday, Vice President Biden hosted Congressional leaders at his ceremonial Capitol Hill office, but no meeting details were released. White House Chief of Staff William Daley and Budget Director Jacob Lew also attended the meeting, which occurred just a day after the White House agreed to cut an additional $6.5 billion from its budget proposal.

At the heart of the impasse: how to measure the amount of spending that is being cut. Republicans ran on campaign promises to cut $100 billion from current spending levels. The Obama Administration has said it is willing to accept spending levels that are $52 billion lower than amount in its recent budget proposal, which is little more than half of the GOP goal. Republicans counter that only $10 billion of the cuts offered by the White House would count towards current spending levels, because they relate to proposed spending.

The Senate will start deliberations this week on two bills, but neither is expected to break the 60-vote minimum to avoid a filibuster. The Republican-backed bill seeks to cut $61 billion from current spending levels and has already passed the House. A Democratic alternative outlines the additional $6.5 billion in cuts the White House has put forward. While Democrats believe Republican cuts would lower aggregate demand and endanger the economic recovery, Republicans contend that these cuts are necessary to ensure the United States gets its fiscal house in order to ensure continued economic growth.

For a bill to make it through both chambers before Congress goes into recess again, both sides will have to agree on cuts that lie somewhere in the middle. If both bills are filibustered, the political necessity for compromise will be further underscored.

Senate Retirements Bring 2012 Elections Into Focus

With midterm elections a distant memory, the pieces are already falling into place for several 2012 Senate elections. Two more senators recently announced that they will retire at the end of the 112th Congress, joining six others who have said will do the same. Senator John Ensign (R-NV) announced his intentions today, while Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) made his plans known last week. The others are Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and Jim Webb (D-VA). Regardless of who wins next November, the next Senate will look a bit different than the current one.

With the exception of Webb, who will retire after the end of his first term, all are veteran lawmakers who have served for a number of years in Congress. Akaka has been in the Senate since 1990. Before that, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives starting in 1977. Ensign won House elections in 1994 and 1996 but lost a Senate race to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who is now the Majority Leader. Ensign went on to win a Senate seat in his second attempt in 2000 before winning re-election in 2006. Kyl was first elected to the Senate in 1994 after spending four terms in the House, and Lieberman has been a Senator since winning his first Senate election in 1988.

New Mexico has sent Bingaman to Congress for almost two decades, starting with his first election in 1982. Hutchinson won a special election in 1993 for her first trip to the Senate, followed by a full term and then re-election in every cycle since then. When Conrad first came to Congress after being elected in 1986, he held the other North Dakota Senate seat. Although he declined to run for re-election in 1992, he won a special election later that year for his current seat, which he has held ever since.

Even though the next election is still 20 months away, political insiders are already jockeying for position to take advantage of a field that is relatively open at this point in the election cycle. First-term Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), for example, announced on Monday that he is endorsing former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination for Senator Hutchinson's current seat. In a statement released by Cruz's campaign, Lee said, "Ted and I share much in common. We're both proven conservatives who clerked for strong conservative Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, and we both believe passionately in limited government and the U.S. Constitution."

Next door in Virginia, former Governor and current Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine has said he will probably not run for Senator Webb's current seat. Yet, he is receiving vocal public encouragement from the White House and Democratic members of the Virginia Congressional delegation to run.

Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said recently he will not run, in part to allow Kaine to run instead. Over the weekend, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said Kaine "would be our strongest candidate." If Kaine does decide to run, he will likely face former Senator and Governor George Allen, who lost re-election to Senator Webb in 2006. Kaine is likely to make an announcement regarding his decision when he returns from vacation this week.

In the West, former Representative Heather Wilson (R-NM) is expected to announce Monday that she will run for Senator Bingaman's current seat. After winning her first Congressional election in a 1998 special election, Wilson was re-elected every year until 2008, when she lost in the primary to former Representative Steve Pearce, who ultimately lost to Senator Tom Udall (D-NM). In the interim, Wilson led Governor Susana Martinez's transition team, in addition to working in the private sector as a consultant.

Pearce responded to the news, saying, "Let's evaluate our potentials. Let's evaluate the opportunities and the threats, and let's do the best we can to get that seat... If we're going to have a free for all, it'll look very similar to what it did two years ago." Meanwhile, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already released a video attacking Wilson, demonstrating how quickly Washington can spring into action over partisan politics.