Two Senators Endorse Debt Panel Plan
Published: December 1, 2010 - New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Budget
Committee, Judd
Gregg and Kent
Conrad, said on Wednesday that they endorsed the package of long-term tax
increases and spending cuts put forward by the co-chairmen of President
Obama’s deficit
reduction commission.
But their support was offset by several other members of Congress from both
parties who indicated their opposition to the plan before a final vote on
Friday.
The probable opponents include Representatives Paul
D. Ryan of Wisconsin, a Republican who will be the House Budget Committee
chairman in the next Congress; Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who will be a Republican
House leader; and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, a liberal Democrat who has called
the chairmen’s plan too hard on the middle class and has put forward her own
proposal.
“There are no easy fixes here, so while I do not agree with all parts of the
co-chairmen’s final proposal, I will support it because it represents a step
forward that we urgently need,” Mr. Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said in
a statement on Wednesday, released before the panel began its last public
meeting before Friday’s vote on the proposal. “Lawmakers in Washington are
elected to make the decisions necessary to keep our country safe from harm and
on solid economic footing. Inaction on our debt crisis is not an option at this
point.”
The two co-chairmen — former Senator Alan
K. Simpson, a Republican, and Erskine
B. Bowles, a Democrat and former chief of staff to President Bill
Clinton — formally
released their proposal Wednesday morning, but its broad outlines have been
known for weeks. The report calls for deep cuts in domestic and military
spending starting in 2012, and a sweeping overhaul of the tax code to raise
revenue, in part by modifying or eliminating tax deductions like the one for
home mortgage interest.
Though Mr. Gregg has influence among conservatives on fiscal matters, he is
retiring at the end of the year after decades in Congress. The backing of Mr.
Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, who will remain chairman of the Senate Budget
Committee in the next Congress, appeared to be more crucial.
“To be clear, I am supporting this plan as a package, because it represents
genuine bipartisan compromise, with both Democrats and Republicans making
concessions,” said Mr. Conrad, who faces re-election in 2012. “I don’t like
everything in this package, but I like even less where our country is headed
without it. It would be much easier to say no and to oppose this plan.”
He added: “Anyone watching the spreading debt crisis in Europe over the last
few days, in Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, understands the threat we face is
real. We can’t afford to wait until the crisis is upon us.”
Two members of the 18-member deficit
commission who do not hold elective office — David Cote, chief executive of
Honeywell
International, and Alice
Rivlin, a former budget director for Congress and later for President
Clinton — also announced their support for the plan on Wednesday. That suggested
that there would be at least seven votes for the chairmen’s plan, counting Mr.
Simpson, Mr. Bowles and Ann Fudge, a former executive of Young & Rubicam
whose support is expected. In all, there are six Republican members of Congress,
six Democratic members of Congress and six unelected commissioners on the panel.
Under Mr. Obama’s February order creating the commission, 14 of the 18
members must agree to send a plan to Congress — a supermajority that even some
of the commissioners privately do not expect to be achieved.
Aside from Mr. Conrad and Mr. Gregg, most of the dozen members of Congress on
the panel — including the three Republicans from the House who will hold senior
chairmanships in the next Congress — are expected to vote against the plan.
Republicans generally oppose proposed revenue increases, seek deeper spending
cuts and want to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law, despite its projected cost
savings, a step the chairmen’s report does not recommend. The Democrats
generally oppose cutting promised benefits for future Medicare
and Social
Security beneficiaries, which the plan does propose.
The potential break between the elected officials on the commission and the
others underscored the reluctance of either political party to risk angering
voters in the short term to pursue the nation’s long-term fiscal health.
The proposal, revised somewhat from a draft released in early November, was
originally meant to be put to a vote by the commission on Wednesday, but the
chairmen delayed the vote until Friday to give members more time to review the
revised plan and themselves more time to line up votes in favor.
The commission pressed ahead with its last-ditch efforts as Mr. Obama and
Republican leaders opened negotiations on Tuesday in search of what the
president called “sensible common ground” in their debate over extending lowered
income tax rates from the Bush era. It is the most immediate domestic issue
facing them, and a key test of whether the two sides can work together in the
new political order.
During their first meeting since the midterm elections rearranged the power
map in Washington, Mr. Obama told Representative John
A. Boehner, the incoming House speaker, and Senator Mitch
McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, on Tuesday that he regretted not
reaching out to them more in his first two years in office, and vowed to do
better.
Mr. Obama assigned Treasury
Secretary Timothy
F. Geithner and Jack Lew, the White House budget director, to put together a
tax deal with Congress, and he suggested there would be more talks with the
leaders of both parties, including a possible session at Camp David.
“Today we had the beginning of a new dialogue that I hope — and I’m sure most
Americans hope — will help break through the noise and produce real gains,” the
president said after a two-hour session that included Democratic Congressional
leaders as well. “And as we all agreed, that should begin today because there’s
some things we need to get done in the weeks before Congress leaves town for the
holidays.”
With a negotiating framework in place, lawmakers said they could begin to see
the contours of a potential outcome that would extend the Bush-era tax rates
temporarily while giving Democrats some concessions on unemployment
compensation, the estate
tax or other measures that were included in the stimulus
package and are also due to expire this year.
“Now it is all about what Democrats can get,” said one Democratic senator who
did not want to be identified talking about the prospect of the White House and
Congressional Democrats conceding on extending the tax cuts for affluent
Americans.
Still, House Democrats said they could press ahead as early as Thursday with
a vote to allow the tax breaks for income over $250,000 for a family to expire
even though such a plan appears unlikely to be able to clear a Senate filibuster,
given solid Republican opposition and resistance from several Democrats.
Democrats said they could use the votes to make their position clear and also
illustrate that they do not have the votes to block extension of the lowered tax
rates for the wealthy, clearing the way for concessions.
Failure to win support for the deficit reduction panel’s proposals from at
least some lawmakers of each party would undercut the panel’s ability to even
set the terms of debate over how to address chronic annual budget deficits and a
national debt that is mounting toward unsustainable levels.
The chairmen’s plan would cap annual spending for both domestic and military
programs; build on the cost-savings steps in Mr. Obama’s health care law; raise
Social Security payroll taxes for affluent taxpayers and slowly increase the
retirement age to 69 from 67; and reduce or eliminate a raft of popular tax
breaks, including the mortgage interest deduction, in return for lower
income-tax rates for individuals and corporations.
Among the lawmakers, the Republicans generally oppose the chairmen’s draft
plan because of its tax increases for upper-income Americans. Besides Mr. Gregg,
Mr. Ryan and Mr. Hensarling, the elected Republicans on the panel are Senators
Tom
Coburn of Oklahoma and Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, and Representative Dave
Camp of Michigan.
Besides Mr. Conrad and Ms. Schakowsky, the elected Democrats are Senators Richard
J. Durbin of Illinois and Max
Baucus of Montana and Representatives Xavier
Becerra of California and John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina.
While the three House Republicans are said by people involved in the
deliberations to be unbending in their opposition to the blueprint developed by
the chairmen, the three Senate Republicans are not. Similarly, except for Ms.
Schakowsky, the Democratic House and Senate members are said to be still
negotiating with one another and the chairmen toward some compromise.
“Regardless of how the vote turns out,” Mr. Bowles said at a news conference
on Tuesday, he and Mr. Simpson will have won by demonstrating the difficult
choices to be made on taxes and spending. “The era of deficit denial in
Washington is over,” he said.
The clash over taxes and government spending are defining the early stages of
the post-election maneuvering in Washington and seem likely to remain in the
forefront as the 2012 presidential campaign heats up next year.
House and Senate Republicans were adamant after the White House meeting on
Tuesday that they would not give any ground on extending all the tax cuts. Top
aides said they believed the negotiations by administration officials and
Senators Baucus and Jon
Kyl, Republican of Arizona, as well as Representatives Camp and Chris Van
Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, would reach into other tax issues as lawmakers try
to find a deal.
Members of both parties warned that while the door had opened to some
possible resolution of what has proven to be an extremely difficult issue to
resolve, the outcome remains uncertain.
“We had a very nice meeting today,” Mr. Boehner said. “Of course, we’ve had a
lot of very nice meetings. The question is, can we find the common ground the
American people expect us to find?”
Carl Hulse contributed reporting.