Lawmakers Unveil Tentative Budget Deal, Call for Rolling Back Sequester

By Fox News.

Congressional negotiators on Tuesday announced a tentative budget deal that would avoid a partial government shutdown, but also begin to unravel hard-fought spending cuts.

The lead negotiators — Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., and House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. — detailed the specifics of the proposal at an evening press conference.

“I’m proud of this agreement,” Ryan said. “It reduces the deficit—without raising taxes. And it cuts spending in a smarter way. It’s a firm step in the right direction, and I ask all my colleagues in the House to support it.”

But the measure could face a tough climb, particularly in the House which is expected to take up the bill first. Ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, fiscal conservatives raised alarm that lawmakers were proposing to roll back sequester cuts.

The proposal would restore about $63 billion in funding that had been cut by the so-called sequester. Officials said the increases would be offset by a variety of spending reductions and increased fees elsewhere in the budget totaling about $85 billion over a decade, leaving enough for a largely symbolic deficit cut of $23 billion over the next decade.

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Budget Deal A “Significant Step Backwards” In Efforts To Rein In Overspending

By Steve Foley.

Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced a budget deal that would abandon the bipartisan spending limits agreed to in the 2011 Budget Control Act for two years, while seeking to offset that new spending with tens of billions in additional revenue.

Gretchen Hamel, executive director of Public Notice, issued the following statement:

“This deal amounts to a significant step backwards in the effort to rein in overspending and a complete abdication of responsibility in Washington to set priorities and make responsible decisions with our tax dollars. Given the opportunity to make the smart cuts and reforms we need, Washington instead focused on a short-term political fix that opens the door to more spending increases down the road. Members of Congress should listen to their constituents, live up to their promises and do better than this deal. The last thing Americans wanted to see from Washington was more money for more spending.”

Key Findings From Public Notice’s Latest Poll On Government Spending:

As Washington nears its Dec. 13 deadline for a budget deal, Public Notice recently released the results of a national survey of registered voters focusing on the key fiscal issues currently being debated. The survey was conducted by the Tarrance Group via landline and cell phone from Dec. 1-5, 2013, among 803 voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent.

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