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 Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Representative Paul
Ryan are scheduled to meet on Tuesday with the goal of finalizing a
deal, according to aides who asked not to be identified.
While Ryan and Murray have not yet struck a deal and negotiations
could still fall apart, one of the aides said, "They are very close.
You could maybe see a handshake come out of that meeting" on
Tuesday.
If such a deal is reached, the specifics could then be given to
senators who are holding closed-door meetings during lunches that
Democrats and Republicans hold separately on Tuesdays.
For the past several weeks, Murray and Ryan, who head their
chambers' respective budget panels, have been privately trying to
reach a two-year budget deal that aims to end the
Republican-Democratic brinkmanship over fiscal affairs that led to
October's 16-day partial federal government shutdown.
According to aides, Ryan and Murray have been discussing an
unambitious plan that would suspend some of the automatic spending
cuts, known in Washington as "sequestration," that hit the Pentagon
and other agencies hard.
In return for suspending some of the spending cuts, some revenues
would be raised by cutting federal employees retirement benefits and
raising some fees, such as those paid by air travelers.
Democrats have been resisting cuts to pension benefits for federal
workers, and they also have been pushing for extending federal
benefits for the long-term unemployed set to expire at the end of
this month.
Republicans, meanwhile are balking at easing the automatic spending
cuts, arguing that they have been effective in holding back
Washington's spending that has contributed to a record $17.2
trillion in national debt that keeps rising every day.
INCREASED PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS
On Monday, a senior Senate Democratic aide said that workers would
not have to increase their own contributions toward their pensions
as much as previously thought.
The Congressional Budget Office had previously estimated that if
each employee contributed an additional 1.2 percent of their
salaries to get the same retirement annuities, it would save the
government $19 billion over 10 years.
The fate of the long-term unemployment insurance extension remained
unclear.
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If Murray and Ryan can settle on a budget package, which would do
nothing to rein in deficits over the long run, it likely would take
support from both parties to get the measure passed in the House and
Senate in coming days.
The core of the deal they have been discussing entails setting
spending levels at around $1 trillion for each of 2014 and 2015
fiscal years for government agencies and discretionary programs
ranging from education to the military. That's a slight increase
from the $967 billion level expected for fiscal 2014, which began
October 1, after the across-the-board sequestration cuts.
But some conservative House Republicans are expected to oppose even
a small increase in planned spending levels because they view the
sequestration cuts as the only tangible budget savings that Congress
has achieved in recent years.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has expressed similar
reservations.
"There is a lot of respect for Paul Ryan, and everyone will give him
a fair chance to make his case," said a House Republican aide. "But
beyond that, among the very conservative members there is a lot of
skepticism about breaking the sequester caps."
A large group of conservative House Republicans has written a letter
to House Speaker John Boehner urging him to maintain the automatic
spending cuts and the tough budget caps that would keep spending at
$967 billion through the current fiscal year.
"We encourage you to allow a vote as soon as practicable on a
full-year ... funding bill at the levels established in law by the
Budget Control Act," they wrote.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and David Lawder;
editing by
Philip Barbara)
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