A bipartisan House and Senate budget conference committee hasn't formally announced a deal to fund the federal government and ease the still of the automatic, mandatory spending cuts known as sequestration.
But that hasn't stopped opponents from attacking the pending deal, negotiated by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., based on details they've gleaned from media accounts.
FreedomWorks, a tea party-based group, blasted the looming deal because it reportedly will ease some of the $109.3 billion in sequestration cuts that are due to kick in on Jan. 15, 2014, which is also the same day that the stop-gap spending measure Congress passed last October that ended a partial government shutdown expires.
"It's disingenuous for Republicans to surrender the only real spending reforms accomplished under the Obama administration, and call that a deal," FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe said. "Immediate spending and revenue hikes without long-term reforms to spending and entitlement programs isn't a deal, it's just another manufactured, govern-by-crisis shakedown."
The group Americans for Prosperity also blasted the deal in advance of its release, saying that it reneges on the Budget Control Act which capped discretionary spending at $967 billion for Fiscal 2014.
"This past spring the American people sided with Republicans in the House when they stood firm in the face of President Obama's hysterical predictions that the modest sequestration spending cuts would harm our nation," AFP President Tim Phillips said Tuesday. "Now, Republicans should once again stand firm in upholding modest sequestration spending cuts that both parties agreed to for the current fiscal year."
Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, also trashed the yet-to-be announced deal.
"Heritage Action cannot support a budget deal that would increase spending in the near-term for promises of woefully inadequate long-term reductions," the group said in a statement on its web site. "While imperfect, the sequester has proven to be an effective tool in forcing Congress to reduce discretionary spending, and a gimmicky, spend-now-cut-later deal will take our nation in the wrong direction."
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