Senate ‘Gang of 8’ Says This Isn’t Its Moment in Deficit Talks
Harry Hamburg/Associated Press
Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, at a news conference this week. He will take part in negotiations with President Obama.
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Published: November 15, 2012
WASHINGTON — After years of wrangling, members of the bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight are ratcheting back expectations for a deficit reduction breakthrough and now say the best they can probably do is offer ideas for the one fiscal negotiation that will truly matter: talks between President Obamaand Speaker John A. Boehner that begin in earnest on Friday.
Another fruitless meeting this week of the Senate group has only raised the pressure ahead of the White House session between the president and Congressional leaders. “It was great. We had a lot of doughnuts,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat and the most powerful member of the gang, which was once seen as the best hope for a budget deal that could draw support from both parties.
Other ad hoc efforts seem to be languishing as well. Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said after circulating a deficit plan a year in the making, that it was solely up to the president and the speaker to stop the country from careening over the so-called fiscal cliff.
Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, who has been negotiating with Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said it was time to squelch such side negotiations, lest they undermine Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner.
“There’s eight individuals, well meaning and trying to get a deal, and it shows you how hard it is,” Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and an original member of the Gang of Eight, said of the apparent impasse. “And it’s gotten harder after the election. As you might imagine, positions have hardened.”
Such freelance negotiations were once seen as a bottom-up way to push leaders on Capitol Hill and in the White House toward the political center, where they could compromise on a sweeping deficit reduction package. The self-appointed gang once put itself forward as the architects of a “grand bargain” to save the nation from fiscal and economic crisis.
But, Mr. Bennet said, time has run out. Now lawmakers from both parties say they need a solution imposed from the top.
“We want to find a way to avoid the cliff, and the focus of this effort is going to be between the president and John Boehner,” Mr. Durbin said. “It is possible that some of the ideas we come up with may be of value in that conversation.”
On Friday Mr. Obama will meet with Mr. Boehner; Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader; Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, to begin deficit negotiations formally. White House officials say Mr. Obama is likely to extend another invitation for next week, after he returns from a trip to Asia and before Thanksgiving.
If no agreement is reached, hundreds of billions of dollars in simultaneous tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts will begin in January. Economists say that sudden jolt would be likely to send the economy back into recession.
“At this point, the president and the speaker, the other leaders, are going to be meeting at the White House, and I think the focus needs to be on those meetings,” said Senator Michael D. Crapo, Republican of Idaho and another member of the gang. “And although there are many other discussions working on trying to help find a path forward here, I don’t think that we need to be looking at other options in terms of the decision-making process right now.”
Senators involved in the negotiations do not want a repeat of last summer, when they were blamed in part for the collapse of the last set of deficit talks between the president and the speaker. Those negotiations appeared to be heading toward a deal in July 2011 when the framework of a Senate “gang” agreement emerged, promising $1.2 trillion in revenue increases, 50 percent more than the $800 billion that Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner were homing in on. Suddenly the president faced the prospect of agreeing to the lower figure with the speaker, then facing a revolt from his own party. Republicans say the White House demanded more tax increases, Mr. Boehner balked, and talks collapsed.
Senate negotiators say officially that efforts to find a broad, bipartisan debt plan continue, but frustration is starting to show. The original Gang of Six — augmented by two new members, Mr. Bennet and Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska — met for three days in Mount Vernon, Va., in October, but little progress was made.
They reconvened on Tuesday, but the election results presented a new set of problems. Republican officials familiar with the talks say Democrats dug in on demands for tax revenue that Republicans are not willing to meet. Democratic aides say Republicans who had spoken abstractly about the need for more revenues are balking at the specifics.
“Things change. It’s not just a matter of the numbers changing, and they do,” Mr. Durbin said of shifting deficit projections, revenue forecasts and spending totals. “It’s also a matter of the political environment, and the landscape changing.”
Democrats freely admit they have shifted their stance from the defensive crouch of the summer of 2011, when they signed on to a budget deal that cut $1 trillion in spending with no tax increases, to now, when they believe the voters have given them a mandate to raise taxes on the affluent.
“We were in damage limitation mode. Now we’re in full problem-solving mode,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Both sides insist they want a deal before January, but a rising chorus of voices, especially Democrats, say they would rather go over the cliff than accept a deal that raised too few taxes while extracting too many cuts, especially to Medicare and Medicaid.
The search for a deal before January is off to a slow start. Rob Nabors, the president’s chief liaison to Congress, came to the Capitol early this week to meet with Mr. Boehner’s chief of staff, Mike Sommers. But little groundwork was done ahead of Friday’s meeting.
Some Republican House aides suggested that Mr. Obama was trying to raise the pressure on Republicans with his lackadaisical approach ahead of a trip to Asia and a Thanksgiving break. True negotiations, they say, will not begin until December, just weeks before the deadline.
Published: November 15, 2012
WASHINGTON — After years of wrangling, members of the bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight are ratcheting back expectations for a deficit reduction breakthrough and now say the best they can probably do is offer ideas for the one fiscal negotiation that will truly matter: talks between President Obamaand Speaker John A. Boehner that begin in earnest on Friday.
Yuri Gripas/Reuters
John A. Boehner, the House speaker, will try again to come to an agreement with the president on a deficit reduction plan.
Jonathan Ernst for The New York Times
“As you might imagine, positions have hardened,” said Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican member of the Gang of Eight.
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said it was now up to Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner to try to find a solution.
Another fruitless meeting this week of the Senate group has only raised the pressure ahead of the White House session between the president and Congressional leaders. “It was great. We had a lot of doughnuts,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat and the most powerful member of the gang, which was once seen as the best hope for a budget deal that could draw support from both parties.
Other ad hoc efforts seem to be languishing as well. Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said after circulating a deficit plan a year in the making, that it was solely up to the president and the speaker to stop the country from careening over the so-called fiscal cliff.
Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, who has been negotiating with Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said it was time to squelch such side negotiations, lest they undermine Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner.
“There’s eight individuals, well meaning and trying to get a deal, and it shows you how hard it is,” Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and an original member of the Gang of Eight, said of the apparent impasse. “And it’s gotten harder after the election. As you might imagine, positions have hardened.”
Such freelance negotiations were once seen as a bottom-up way to push leaders on Capitol Hill and in the White House toward the political center, where they could compromise on a sweeping deficit reduction package. The self-appointed gang once put itself forward as the architects of a “grand bargain” to save the nation from fiscal and economic crisis.
But, Mr. Bennet said, time has run out. Now lawmakers from both parties say they need a solution imposed from the top.
“We want to find a way to avoid the cliff, and the focus of this effort is going to be between the president and John Boehner,” Mr. Durbin said. “It is possible that some of the ideas we come up with may be of value in that conversation.”
On Friday Mr. Obama will meet with Mr. Boehner; Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader; Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, to begin deficit negotiations formally. White House officials say Mr. Obama is likely to extend another invitation for next week, after he returns from a trip to Asia and before Thanksgiving.
If no agreement is reached, hundreds of billions of dollars in simultaneous tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts will begin in January. Economists say that sudden jolt would be likely to send the economy back into recession.
“At this point, the president and the speaker, the other leaders, are going to be meeting at the White House, and I think the focus needs to be on those meetings,” said Senator Michael D. Crapo, Republican of Idaho and another member of the gang. “And although there are many other discussions working on trying to help find a path forward here, I don’t think that we need to be looking at other options in terms of the decision-making process right now.”
Senators involved in the negotiations do not want a repeat of last summer, when they were blamed in part for the collapse of the last set of deficit talks between the president and the speaker. Those negotiations appeared to be heading toward a deal in July 2011 when the framework of a Senate “gang” agreement emerged, promising $1.2 trillion in revenue increases, 50 percent more than the $800 billion that Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner were homing in on. Suddenly the president faced the prospect of agreeing to the lower figure with the speaker, then facing a revolt from his own party. Republicans say the White House demanded more tax increases, Mr. Boehner balked, and talks collapsed.
Senate negotiators say officially that efforts to find a broad, bipartisan debt plan continue, but frustration is starting to show. The original Gang of Six — augmented by two new members, Mr. Bennet and Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska — met for three days in Mount Vernon, Va., in October, but little progress was made.
They reconvened on Tuesday, but the election results presented a new set of problems. Republican officials familiar with the talks say Democrats dug in on demands for tax revenue that Republicans are not willing to meet. Democratic aides say Republicans who had spoken abstractly about the need for more revenues are balking at the specifics.
“Things change. It’s not just a matter of the numbers changing, and they do,” Mr. Durbin said of shifting deficit projections, revenue forecasts and spending totals. “It’s also a matter of the political environment, and the landscape changing.”
Democrats freely admit they have shifted their stance from the defensive crouch of the summer of 2011, when they signed on to a budget deal that cut $1 trillion in spending with no tax increases, to now, when they believe the voters have given them a mandate to raise taxes on the affluent.
“We were in damage limitation mode. Now we’re in full problem-solving mode,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Both sides insist they want a deal before January, but a rising chorus of voices, especially Democrats, say they would rather go over the cliff than accept a deal that raised too few taxes while extracting too many cuts, especially to Medicare and Medicaid.
The search for a deal before January is off to a slow start. Rob Nabors, the president’s chief liaison to Congress, came to the Capitol early this week to meet with Mr. Boehner’s chief of staff, Mike Sommers. But little groundwork was done ahead of Friday’s meeting.
Some Republican House aides suggested that Mr. Obama was trying to raise the pressure on Republicans with his lackadaisical approach ahead of a trip to Asia and a Thanksgiving break. True negotiations, they say, will not begin until December, just weeks before the deadline.
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