Congressional negotiators struggling to prevent a government shutdown next week are working on a proposal built around $33 billion in spending cuts over the next six months.....

..... considerably less than Tea Party activists demanded.

The tentative split-the-differences plan would end up where GOP leaders started last month as they tried to fulfill a campaign pledge to return spending for agencies' daily operations to levels in place before President Barack Obama took office. That calculation takes into account the fact that the current budget year, which began Oct. 1, is about half over.