WASHINGTON DC – A surprise jolt of bipartisan support emerged Tuesday for a $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction plan that had been in development for months, though it was thought to be dead just several weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Roughly half of the Senate’s 100 members sat through an hour-long briefing on the plan, which was designed by a group of lawmakers known as the “Gang of Six” and would cut spending, overhaul entitlement programs such as Medicare, rework the tax code, and make significant changes to Social Security.
The plan is sweeping in its scope but was thought for months to be both overly ambitious and slightly ambiguous, which nearly led the effort to collapse in recent weeks. But the plan was revived, in part by its lead authors?Sens. Mark Warner (D., Va.) and Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.)?and the flood of bipartisan support coming out of the meeting surprised them both, the lawmakers said.
The proposal is modeled largely on a package of reductions advanced in December by the White House’s deficit-reduction commission, co-chaired by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson. Messrs. Warner and Chambliss, along with Sens. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) and Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) then spent months trying to take that plan and figure out a way to repackage it so that could win congressional support.
Jerry Seib has the latest on the debt talks and why Washington now appears to have collectively squandered the opportunity to make something positive out of the crisis.
The plan does not include an increase in the $14.29 trillion federal borrowing limit. But several senators, including Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and John Kerry (D., Mass.), said they hoped it could be considered as part of a package to raise the debt ceiling before Aug. 2, to avoid a government default.
Separately, top White House officials and congressional leaders are racing against the clock to devise a deficit-reduction proposal that would get both President Barack Obama’s signature and enough Republican votes to pass the House in time to raise the debt ceiling before that deadline.
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