their agenda. >> humberto sanchez is a staff writer with "roll call." budget and senate conferees hold that house and senate conferees hold budget talks. what is the status of their talks? >> they continued to try to find common ground on the goal of the talks. expect a lot of positioning on open positions on where the negotiations will begin. senator patter murray actually gave a speech about what her goals are on the floor last tuesday, saying that she is looking for a budget deal for the short term, basically, and to rollback the sequester, to replace the sequester, and she is hoping that republicans go along with closing tax loopholes to do so, but republicans seem somewhat skeptical of the idea because they think it's just another way of raising taxes. >> next week, senate committees are holding confirmation hearings for two of the administration's nominees.