Budget Talks Inch Toward Progress

The Wall Street Journal (online registration required): With time running short, budget negotiators report they are continuing efforts to reach a small-scale fiscal agreement that could replace some of the across-the-board spending cuts. But big hurdles remain and it is unclear whether a package can secure bipartisan support by a mid-January deadline.

“They are still in a massaging period of trying to figure out if anything can be done,” Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) said after meeting with one of the top negotiators, Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.). “I wouldn’t say they are any closer than the day they started.”

Read article