Almost unheard of in the modern era, the lead negotiators on a budget plan, Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash and Representative Paul Ryan, R-Wis, held a press conference announcing they had reached a tentative deal in which both sides had made large compromises.
There will obviously be much opposition on both sides which can only be expected as long as we have a divided congress but it is a first step which is something we haven’t had in quite some time. That opposition will take a considerable amount of work to overcome since there has been so much tension between the parties over the last few years and trust on either side is very weak.
Ahead of the announcement, influential conservative groups were lining up against the emerging plan out of concern that it unravels hard-fought spending cuts. The opposition complicates lawmakers’ efforts to hammer out a deal before the holiday break. Facing a Jan 15 deadline to either pass a budget or trigger a partial government shutdown, House and Senate negotiators continued to meet Tuesday.
Fiscal hawks were most concerned about signs that lawmakers could move to chip away at a 2011 budget pact considered by conservatives to be the most significant deficit-trimming legislation of the past five years while on the other side, a senior House Democratic source said, “the deal still isn’t sitting well with House Democrats.” The hesitation, and opposition, on both sides indicates that congressional leaders still have a lot of convincing to do, even if a tentative plan is soon unveiled. House Speaker John Boehner claimed Tuesday he was ‘optimistic” about the chances for a deal but the speaker would likely be reluctant to once again try to pass a bill that a majority of Republican members do not support.
One senior Senate aide said, speaking of the lead negotiators, “They are trying to thread a needle, not easy.” The two have been holding secretive talks for weeks at producing an accord to replace some, but not all, of the automatic spending cuts know as sequestration. Budget experts briefed on the talks predict that any bargain may replace $40 billion – about half of the cuts for the 2014 fiscal year – and a lesser amount for 2015.
“I am really…cautiously optimistic that we have a deal,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.
The central elements to the potential agreement, aides and budgets experts briefed on the talks say, would be to require federal workers to contribute more to their pensions, increase a post-Sept. 11 security fee to add $5 to the cost of a typical round-trip flight and require corporations whose pension plans are guaranteed by the government to pay higher premiums. Medicaid payments to hospitals that care for a “disproportionate share” of uninsured people may also get cut.
The negotiators announced their agreement early this evening and plan to put the budget on their website tonight. There is still much ‘hashing’ out and debating to be done but I am optimistic that at least some are trying to attempt to breach the gap between the parties despite the current mood in Washington. I still expect the debating to continue pretty close to the deadline once again but if we can finally get something through, it might end the threat of going through the arguments every three or four months. The plan is referenced to be for two years.
An agreement here could calm the tide enabling talks over the spending cap a little easier.
We can hope!
