|
Politico...
Debt
talks have senators angry about
being left out
By Manu Raju
7/21/11
The
White House faced a near rebellion
from senators who were blindsided by word of a possible deal between
President
Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, with Democrats worried the
president would cave on taxes while Republicans complained about bing
left in
the dark on a potentially historic deficit plan.
Furious
Democrats directed their ire
squarely at Obama’s budget director, Jack Lew, at a closed-door lunch
meeting,
while Republicans peppered their leaders with questions about the
possibility
of being jammed into a multitrillion-dollar bill with virtually no time
for
review.
The
frustration was evident in
virtually all corners of the Senate on Thursday as it became
increasingly
possible that the body where landmark deals are usually made could
effectively
be left out of this one.
“On
something of such profound public
importance,” freshman Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said, “I’m stunned.”
It
all adds up to an enormous
challenge for Obama, as he tries to get the country past the Aug. 2
deadline in
which Congress must agree to raise the $14.3 trillion national debt
ceiling or
face the unprecedented crisis of the United States defaulting on its
loans.
With warnings from ratings agencies that the country’s credit rating
could be
downgraded without plans to reverse the fiscal mess, both sides have
been
working to broker a deficit-cutting deal before next month.
But
political jousting has contributed
to a stalemate, with Democrats insisting that new tax revenues must
accompany
any plan to cut the debt, while the GOP has been steadfast about
keeping taxes
off the table.
And
Obama has focused intensely on the
House GOP majority to figure out what could pass the more conservative
chamber,
leaving senators out of the loop and distraught that they may be unable
to
shape the final package. Initial proposals could cut about $3 trillion
from
entitlement programs, like Medicare and Social Security and
discretionary
spending in exchange for a deal to raise the national debt limit by
$2.4
trillion through 2012.
The
darkening mood is a sharp shift
from bipartisan enthusiasm in the Senate on Tuesday over a budget plan
from a
group of senators known as the Gang of Six, which calls for a sweeping
array of
revenue raisers and entitlement cuts to slash $3.7 trillion off
deficits in the
next decade. With word leaking that Obama was looking at punting on
taxes until
a later date to get a deal with Boehner on the debt ceiling increase,
Senate
Democrats were enraged.
Read
the rest of the story at Politico
|
