The deal President Barack Obama, Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached to reopen the federal government and raise the debt ceiling includes a bipartisan panel charged with producing a long-term budget agreement.
 In remarks Thursday, the president called for a new era of bipartisan cooperation on Capitol Hill. “To all my friends in Congress, understand that how business is done in this town has to change,” the president said. He noted that the nation’s fiscal challenges are the “long-term obligations that we have around things like Medicare and Social Security. We want to make sure those are there for future generations. “ In a joint statement, Murray and Ryan pledged to work together to find a way around the automatic spending cuts known as “sequestration” now governing federal spending. “We hope we can reduce the deficit in a smarter way. We hope to restore stability to the budget process and end the lurching from crisis to crisis,” they said. Medicare currently accounts for 16 percent of the federal budget, a share that will grow as more baby... |
