Good Thursday morning, I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing,

sponsored by Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses. And I'm Anna Palmer. Happy government shutdown day.

Make no mistake. There's a chance. Of course, it's a small one. We think that the government could

shut down tonight. It's not likely, but Republicans and Democrats are attempting to do

hand flips on a tight wire at the moment. Here's a reminder of what's at stake. Government funding runs

out tonight, and Congress isn't attempting, as usual, to merely avoid a government shutdown today.

This bill up for consideration is a major spending bill as Washington has seen since the stimulus in 2009.

If President Barack Obama proposed this, he would have been laughed out of the room.

Remember, in 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act, which attempted to control what Republicans considered profligate spending.

They're basically undoing that with this bill.

Yes, this bill avert a shutdown, but that's only a tiny sliver of what it does.

It sets the stage to boost spending by roughly $300 billion over the next few years.

It kicks in another at least $80 billion in disaster spending.

Even most Texans seem pleased at the moment.

And it dispends the debt limit until March 2019, basically telling Congress it could spend

whatever amount of money it wants between now and then. That's a big win for Republicans

who don't want to vote on the debt limit before the midterm elections. Here's what today

will look like. The Senate is expected to take up and pass

this bill early in the afternoon. They'll probably pass it with 70 plus votes and leave town for the

weekend. Per usual, the House is where things get tricky. In order to pass this bill, it will

need to attract significant support from Democrats and Republicans alike. On the Republican side,

we've heard estimates that

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