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 Along with three Democrats, the House negotiators are aiming to
quickly reconcile differing levels and specifics of cuts to social
safety net programs and increases for military spending.
Both budgets aim to eliminate deficits within 10 years with no new
tax revenues, but the House version claims to achieve that a year
sooner, in 2024. The Senate version includes more restrictions on an
increase in off-budget war funding aimed at supplementing Pentagon
funding while nominally maintaining statutory spending caps.
The five House Republican "conferees" do not include any of the
House Budget Committee's most conservative members, who had objected
to efforts to boost war funding by about $38 billion without any
offsetting savings. This forced a rare delay in the panel's vote to
approve the budget and led Boehner to restore the funds through an
amendment that he pushed through the House Rules Committee.
 The Republican negotiators are led by Budget Committee Chairman Tom
Price and include panel vice chairman Todd Rokita of Indiana, Diane
Black of Tennessee, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and freshman
Representative John Moolenaar of Michigan.
"In the days to come, we will sit down and discuss how to advance
these positive solutions together in order to secure more economic
growth and opportunity, hold Washington accountable, promote
patient-centered health care, and ensure a strong national defense,"
Price said in a statement.
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Democrats, who have their smallest House minority since 1947, named
three negotiators: Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the panel,
John Yarmuth of Kentucky and Gwen Moore of Wisconsin. They will
largely be relegated to trying to draw attention to spending cuts
that hurt the poor
Senate Republican leaders are expected to name negotiators later
this week, party aides said.
The timeline for completing the budget, Congress' first since 2009,
has slipped since Price and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike
Enzi launched informal talks during a two week Easter/Passover
break. They initially aimed to have a budget passed by a Wednesday
deadline, but Enzi told reporters it would likely be at least next
week.
"There are a lot of details, and yes we've worked out a lot of them,
but we've got a lot to go," Enzi said.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Ken Wills)
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