With just 13 days remaining until an Aug. 2 deadline for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate began coalescing behind a compromise measure that would reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over the next decade, overhaul the tax code and reform Social Security. A bipartisan “Gang of Six” senators, who have been working for several months on a deficit reduction plan, unveiled their proposal to 49 senators Tuesday and it received such widespread praise that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said it should be the vehicle for Congress to approve an increase in the nation’s borrowing limit. President Obama went on television to praise the plan, calling it a “balanced approach” that Congress should support.
On Capitol Hill, the measure was widely praised, but key leaders said getting it approved intact in less than two weeks would be nearly impossible.
“This is a monumental achievement of statesmanship,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said after a closed-door GOP meeting about the plan. “We ought to achieve victory, get ready to vote on it and try to get some sort of supermajority, critical mass and then send it to the House and save the day. It represents a real breakthrough and a real opportunity.”
The plan was authored by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., two members of the gang. According to an executive summary, it would immediately cut spending by $500 billion. It then calls for a second bill that would task Senate committees with the job of cutting spending, imposing new spending caps, tackling entitlements and reforming the tax code.
The plan would close tax loopholes, raising $1.7 trillion in new revenue.
Republicans said they favored the Gang of Six plan over a new plan Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., began crafting in recent days. That plan would give Obama the authority to raise the debt limit in three installments in exchange for finding budget cuts. It would also create a commission to come up with a deficit reduction plan that also tackles entitlement reform.
“I think people would much rather move to something that has been worked on for months and months and months and let that be a template, versus some new commission,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.. “I personally have no appetite for that whatsoever.”
Reid and McConnell were less enthusiastic about the Gang of Six plan. McConnell said he had yet to see the details while Reid suggested there was not enough time to get such a big plan passed in Congress by the Aug. 2 deadline.
Instead, Reid said, he told Warner to pick out parts of his plan that could be incorporated into the plan Reid and McConnell are working on.
The latest compromise measure probably won’t win the support of the Tea Party freshmen in the House and Senate.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told The Washington Examiner the Gang of Six plan does not balance the budget.
“That’s a problem for me,” he said.
In the House, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans in the House would be needed to pass such a compromise, since few Tea Party freshmen would back it because it raises taxes and does not require a balanced budget.
House Republicans spent Tuesday pushing for passage of bill that would balance the budget, cut spending by $111 billion and cap future spending. The effort was largely symbolic, since such a bill has little chance of passing in the Democratically led Senate.
