For a taste of the policy riders that are currently in the budget bill and preventing the Democrats and Republicans from reaching a deal, I’ve highlighted a dozen or so below. Links go to the actual legislative text of the riders.

• defunding Planned Parenthood.
• defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR, PBS and other public media.
• blocking EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
• blocking funds for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• blocking the FCC from implementing their open internet rules.
• blocking Education Department from implementing a program that would restrict federal student aid to for-profit colleges whose students have high debt-to-income ratios.
• defunding implementation of all provisions of the new health care law.
• blocking an Interior Department effort to protect public natural spaces.
• blocking funding of a new "consumer products complaints database.
• blocking the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the US for any reason.
• blocking the payment of salaries for 9 Obama Administration policy advisers.