With heavy pressure on Congress to take swift action on the September 11 commission’s proposals, many legislators have been called back to Washington during the summer recess for committee hearings and meetings.

Defense Department (DoD) officials have returned to Washington in order to defend the Pentagon’s priorities in order to retain control of intelligence operations. The department currently controls more than 80% of the estimated $40 billion annual intelligence budget. On Tuesday and Wednesday senior military leaders will appear before a panel of the House Armed Services Committee. The DoD’s supporters believe the commission’s proposals should be slowly and thoroughly scrutinized, rather than rapidly implemented. Although the creation of a national intelligence director (NID) has already been endorsed by the Bush administration, debate as to whether the NID would gain full control over the various intelligence agencies budgets or merely "input" into the budget process, has yet to conclude. The 9/11 commission strongly advised that the NID would retain full control, but as this would shift power away from the Pentagon, many key players remain opposed to such a move. In the past the Pentagon has fought successfully to deny the current Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) budgetary and personnel control over the various agencies the DCI heads.

70 to 100 House Democrats are also expected to return to Washington for a mid-recess caucus meeting on Tuesday. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California hopes to use this meeting to pressure Republicans to act on the commission findings and plan a response to the commission’s challenge. The commission’s recommendations on restructuring intelligence oversight will be difficult to implement because they require changing jurisdictional lines, which will incite turf battles in Congress. Currently, several different congressional panels have control over various security/intelligence groups within the executive branch. Streamlining the review process to one or two panels would enable Congress to exercise both authorizing and appropriating abilities.

The Bush administration released the current fiscal year deficit project July 30, saying the government would run $445 billion into the red. The total figure, a new record, is 19% higher than last years $374 billion deficit.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had projected earlier this year that the budget deficit would climb to $521 billion dollars, and so marked the eventual result as a improvement. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) also predicted a larger deficit in January, but later revised its figure downward.