GOP senator: Senate Dems looking to exceed budget deal by $14 billion

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) says Senate Democrats are violating the Budget Control Act.

Sessions said that the levels in the government's 2013 budget are not following the baseline agreed to as part of the Budget Control Act, instead following a baseline from President Obama's budget.

"The numbers filed by Chairman [Kent] Conrad [(D-N.D.)], my good friend who's an able chairman, are not, in fact, the spending levels of the CBO baseline," Sessions said Tuesday. "Instead, the discretionary outlay total, submitted by the chairman, to the committees for fiscal year 2013 is derived from the President's budget, not the CBO baseline."

As a result, Sessions says, the discretionary spending levels are "inflated by about $14 million more than what was agreed to just last August" when legislators hammered out a debt-ceiling increase agreement.

"It's unthinkable that we would not only spend more than Congress would agree to," Sessions said, "but would institute instead the numbers derived from President Obama's budget which, this chamber, when I brought it up a few days ago, rejected unanimously."

"We're not following a Budget Control Act," Sessions said.

Sessions sent a letter to Conrad urging him to "review your allocations and re-file the enforceable levels and related committee allocations at amounts that are consistent with CBO's March 2012 baseline."