While Democrats and Republicans struggle to find a bipartisan deal on the budget and debt limit, very little attention has been paid to the underlying details of this budget fight, in terms of how much money should be spent on the federal government and its operations.
That spending level was reportedly a main sticking point over the weekend, as key Senators on Sunday were unable to reach agreement on a temporary budget to fund the government.
"There are negotiations, but there is no agreement," read a statement issued by Senate Democrats on Sunday evening.
Currently, the discretionary budget - for everything outside of Social Security and Medicare - stands at $986 billion, chopped down from $1.047 trillion by the across the board budget cuts known as "sequestration."
The $986 billion figure was used in a temporary budget plan by both House Republicans and Senate Democrats, but that masks some partisan and intra-party differences over spending.
For many Republicans in the Congress, there is no way they will accept any plan that fiddles with budget levels set during the last debt ceiling fight back in late July of 2011.
"You are going to see us united that we’re not going to increase spending," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said on Fox News Sunday. "The sequester has been one of the good things."
For budget hawks like Jordan, the sequester has indeed been very good, as it has clearly reduced spending on the discretionary budget.
But House GOP leaders have also floated the idea of getting around the sequester levels by "freezing" the budget at $986 billion for Fiscal Year 2014, instead of allowing the next round of sequester cuts to hit and bring that down to $967 billion.
Republicans who back that plan want to funnel the extra money to defense programs, but a number of GOP lawmakers are not sold on that idea, and want the federal spending cap for 2014 to drop to that $967 billion figure.
Democrats and President Obama, meanwhile, have been advocating a budget that would go up to $1.058 trillion, as Democrats want to wipe away the sequester and use new tax revenues to allow for extra spending next year.
So here's where we stand:
Most Democrats - $1.058 trillion
House GOP leaders - $986 billion
Many GOP lawmakers - $967 billion
Here is where the discretionary budget has been in recent years:
2011 - $1.049 trillion
2012 - $1.043 trillion
2013 - $986 billion (was $1.047 trillion before the sequester)
2014 - $967 billion (post sequester)
When you look at those figures, it is easy to see why Republicans like the spending caps under the sequester plan, and why Democrats want them changed.
But - and this is very important - if you look at where the budget goes after 2014, you see that Democrats will get their budget increase eventually; that's because the spending caps set out by the 2011 debt limit deal will start going up.
Here is where the Budget Control Act is not the friend of Tea Party lawmakers in the Congress.
These are the post-sequester discretionary budget cap estimates of the Congressional Budget Office (in other words, spending would be about $90 billion higher each year if the sequester were repealed):
2013 - $986 billion (current funding)
2014 - $967 billion (current funding with Jan. 15, 2014 sequester)
2015 - $995 billion (+$28 billion in spending)
2016 - $1.016 trillion (+$21 billion)
2017 - $1.040 trillion (+$24 billion)
2018 - $1.065 trillion (+$25 billion)
2019 - $1.092 trillion (+$27 billion)
2020 - $1.120 trillion (+$28 billion)
2021 - $1.146 trillion (+$26 billion)
So - even with the spending caps in place, and no change to current law under the Budget Control Act, spending could go up starting in 2015 by about $25 billion each year for the next seven years.
If the sequester were to be erased, as the White House wants, then the budget would end up at $1.234 trillion in 2021, $88 billion higher than the post-sequester levels.
The sequester was agreed to by both parties during the last debt limit fight in 2011 as a way to control spending.
Republicans got their budget cuts in the beginning. Democrats get their spending increases later.
Now we find ourselves in another budget and debt limit fight. We'll see in coming days what changes, and what does not.
