''We have a budget deal. Well, at least Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan have agreed to one. Now we'll get to see if it can pass both houses. But for the moment, we have a deal.
This two-year budget would eliminate $44.8 billion of the sequester in 2014, $18.7 billion in 2015 and has an additional $22.5 billion of deficit reduction. The sequester relief is split between defense and non-defense discretionary spending.
As with any deal though, there are losers. In the Murray-Ryan deal, as seems to be happening quite frequently these days, one of the main losers is federal workers.
In particular, this deal forces federal workers hired after December 31, 2013 to contribute 1.3 percent more to their retirement funds, totaling $6 billion over the next 10 years. The same goes for the military.
This won't affect current federal employees. Of course, those workers already faced furloughs this year due to sequestration and many had trouble paying their October bills thanks to the government shutdown. And the Murray-Ryan deal doesn't fully replace sequestration. It reduces it by around a half this year and a quarter next year. Many federal workers may still be furloughed. Now, new ones will be force to contribute more to their pensions as well.''
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