Mulvaney was born in Alexandria, Virginia, to Michael "Mike" and Kathleen "Kathy" Mulvaney, a teacher, and grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where his father became a prominent homebuilder, before moving to Indian Land, South Carolina. His grandparents were originally from County Mayo, Ireland. He attended Charlotte Catholic High School and then Georgetown University, where he majored in international economics, commerce and finance. At Georgetown, he was an Honors Scholar, the highest level of academic achievement awarded to members of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and ultimately graduated with honors in 1989.

On December 10, 2013, Republican Representative Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray announced that they had negotiated the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, a proposed two-year budget deal. The budget deal capped the federal government's spending for Fiscal Year 2014 at $1.012 trillion and for Fiscal Year 2015 at $1.014.  The proposed deal eliminated some of the spending cuts required by the sequester by $45 billion of the cuts scheduled to happen in January and $18 billion of the cuts scheduled to happen in 2015. This did not decrease federal spending; instead, by reducing the amount of spending cuts the government was going to be forced to make by the sequester, it actually increased government spending by $45 billion and $18 billion over what would have been spent had the sequester remained in place. Some Republicans wanted Speaker John Boehner to pursue a temporary measure that would cover the rest of Fiscal Year 2014 at the level set by the sequester - $967 billion, rather than pass this budget deal, which would have $45 billion in additional spending.  The deal was designed to make up for this increase in spending by raising airline fees and changing the pension contribution requirements of new federal workers. According to The Hill, Mulvaney spearheaded opposition to the bill. He did not blame Ryan for the budget deal, instead saying that the problem was that too few conservatives had been elected to Congress to pass a budget with a greater focus on debt reduction. Mulvaney said that he expected the budget deal to pass because "it was designed to get the support of defense hawks and appropriators and Democrats", not conservatives.  On April 9, 2014, Mulvaney offered a proposal based on the Obama proposal as a substitute amendment in order to force a vote on the President's budget request. The President's proposal failed in a vote of 2-413, although Democrats were urged by their leadership to vote against this "political stunt."

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