GOP support rising in Senate for budget deal

Dec 17 2013

The Senate could have first vote on the agreement today.

The Washington Post: Bipartisan Senate Budget Deal Appears Likely To Pass
The deal, struck by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), is intended to end nearly three years of acrimony over the budget in Washington. It would cancel half the sequester cuts for the current fiscal year, replace them with other savings and allow Congress to avert another government shutdown in January. ... The proposal would raise about $85 billion over the next decade through a variety of policies, including trimming pensions for civil-service workers and military retirees younger than 62, raising security fees for airline passengers and extending the sequester for Medicare providers an additional two years, through 2023 (Montgomery and O'Keefe, 12/16).

The Associated Press: Several GOP Senators To Back A Vote On Budget 
Nobody is claiming the pact worked out between the high-profile [Rep. Paul] Ryan, the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee last year, and Washington state Sen. Patty Murray, a Democratic loyalist over her 21-year Senate career, is perfect. It eases $63 billion in scheduled spending cuts over the next two years and replaces them with longer-term savings measured over 10 years, many of which don't accumulate until 2022-23. Deficits would increase by $23.2 billion in 2014 and by $18.2 billion the year after that. But the deal would put a dysfunctional Washington on track to prevent unappealingly tough cuts to military readiness and weapons, as well as continued cuts to programs cherished by Democrats and Republicans alike, including health research, school aid, FBI salaries and border security (Taylor, 12/17).