Expectations Drop For Congressional Budget Deal

Just a week away from its Dec. 13 deadline, lawmakers will have little time in their post-Thanksgiving legislative session to negotiate the kind of major budget deal they'd need to end the federal government's crisis-driven management style.

So rather than struggling to find a "grand bargain" that would offer compromises on spending, taxes and entitlements, lawmakers are now aiming for a narrow deal that would restore some of the cuts imposed under the budget-squeezing "sequester."

"It's looking like a much smaller deal that would hopefully give us a number we could appropriate for fiscal year 2014 … and hopefully a target number for 2015," Rep. Tom Cole, R-Texas, a member of the bipartisan House-Senate budget conference committee, told the Washington Examiner.

The special budget panel was created in October as part of the deal that provided temporary funding to end a 16-day government shutdown.

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