From The Associated Press:
The six have met in private for several months, even as House Republicans and Obama developed more partisan plans that have little chance of being enacted into law because of Washington’s divided government.
House Republicans passed a nonbinding plan in April that calls for reducing annual deficits by a total of $6.2 trillion over the next decade. It includes no tax increases but calls for transforming Medicare from a program in which the government directly pays medical bills into a voucher-like system that subsidizes the purchase of private insurance plans.
Obama has outlined a plan to reduce borrowing by $4 trillion over the next 12 years. His plan includes $1 trillion in tax increases and is less specific about how he would cut benefit programs.
Vice President Joe Biden is to begin leading a series of bipartisan talks this week on reducing the debt. The Gang of Six senators wants its plan to be part of the discussion.
The senators’ work is rooted in a simple political reality: Getting anything actually passed into law given the present balance of power in Washington requires both Democrats and Republicans to embrace proposals that make each uncomfortable. An approach that leaves politically challenging topics off the table simply won’t make a dent in deficits averaging $1 trillion a year or so over the upcoming decade.
“A Republican plan will not pass. A Democratic plan will not pass,” Chambliss said. “It is going to require locking arms and jumping off the building together.”
The still unfinished plan faces many obstacles but has one important advantage. It’s the only truly bipartisan effort in a Senate teeming with politicians promising to tackle the debt but lacking the trust needed to take politically poisonous positions such as cutting federal benefit programs and boosting tax revenues.
The goal is to release the plan within the next few weeks.
Read the whole thing here. This ‘gang-banging’ seems to be the new trend in the Senate. A few Senators from each party get together and declare themselves Super-Senators over some particular issue. Bit of hubris to believe that some collection of enlightened statesmen can decide an issue for all of us, nevermind their 94 colleagues. Publius would like to know, you know, generally speaking, what are they even discussing? And why are these discussions in private? And, finally, will this plan go through the normal open committee process or just kind of show up one day on the Senate floor. Will the Gang of Six tell us we just need to pass their budget to find out what’s in it?
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