Budget

The Congressional Budget Office reported Tuesday that the federal budget deficit is declining this year compared to fiscal 2012.

Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray said they are at a stalemate on reconciling the House and Senate budgets.

Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) tried for a third time to get agreement from Republicans to form a conference committee on the House and Senate budget resolutions.

“Senate Republicans have now blocked our efforts to move to conference not once but twice,” Murray said Tuesday before asking for agreement for a third time. “Some say they want a framework before going to conference, but that’s exactly what a budget is. … There is no reason to wait.”

The sequester will take a bigger bite from the economy in the coming months, experts predicted.

Powerful policymakers on both sides of the aisle are jockeying for position in what will be a defining moment for the 113th Congress.

The two senators bickered as Cruz rose to object to Reid’s motion to appoint conferees to a House-Senate budget committee.

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said Monday that a new study by the Heritage Foundation “puts to rest” any idea that the bipartisan Senate immigration bill is fiscally sound.

President Obama's Office of Management and Budget has implemented technical adjustments called for by law that reduce the $85 billion indiscriminate sequester spending cuts to about $80 billion, administration and congressional sources said Monday. 

The $4.9 billion in changes come as a result of Congress enacting a full 2013 spending bill last month. That bill extended stopgap funding for most agencies but contained full appropriations titles for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and Veterans Affairs. 

Congress added money to some accounts but also cut other accounts below sequestration levels, which hit March 1.

While employees at some federal agencies are already taking unpaid time off, many regulatory agencies are dodging sequestration's cleaver. 

Senate Democrats are moving to farm legislation that they think could bolster several red-state incumbents.