It's been over two days since Congressional leaders and President Obama announced a deal to avert a federal government shutdown. We still don't have the details.
Staffers on the House Appropriations Committee are still hashing out the legislative language of the agreement, and are not expected to file their final product until close to midnight.
That's why the House of Representatives is not even convening until 11 pm tonight.
While that work continues, it raises the question of whether any other items are being jammed into this bill.
One thing I have learned over the years is that even when you think a 'deal' has been negotiated, it can find ways to be changed even after both sides have shaken hands and signed off.
Some of the basics that we know are:
- $13 billion in cuts in Labor, Health and Education programs
- $1 billion across-the-board cut in non-defense spending
- $2.5 billion in transporation earmarks will be cut
- $35 million cut by ending the "Crop Insurance Good Performance Rebate"
- $30 million cut by ending job training for certain student loan processors
- $18 billion in defense cuts But here's the problem with these numbers - this is more of the "fuzzy math" that the White House and Republicans have used from time to time about budget cuts. The above numbers are compared to the proposed Obama budget of last year, which was never enacted, as Democrats say they've agreed to $78.5 billion in cuts. But the actual level is closer to $38-$39 billion. One more interesting note about the level of savings and cuts is this final bill will not contain $38-$39 billion in cuts as advertised. Why? That's because that figure is the overall level of cuts taken out of this year's budget. It includes the $10 billion already cut in the first two stop-gap budget bills that were approved by lawmakers over the past six weeks. And there was $2 billion trimmed back in the one week stop-gap budget passed late on Friday night. So, this bill being hashed out right now by staffers will only include about $26 billion in cuts. Right now, we wait for the details.
