Sen. Patty Murray told her Democratic colleagues that serving on the powerful deficit-slashing supercommittee has been the ?hardest task? of her nearly two-decade Senate career, signaling major challenges still ahead for the secretive panel, according to several attendees at a closed-door lunch.
After meeting with the 12-member panel Thursday morning, Murray, who co-chairs the committee with Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), lunched with her fellow Democratic senators, who are growing anxious about the state of the highly consequential talks. While she didn?t shed much light on the panel?s internal deliberations, Murray signaled strongly that the work has been arduous and major agreements had yet to be struck ? and that the clock is ticking.
Continue Reading?Sen. Murray said it?s about the hardest thing she?s ever faced in her service here ? because of the complexity, the timeframe and expectations,? said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.)
Other senators confirmed this account, and Murray?s office did not dispute it.
The three Democratic senators on the committee ? Murray of Washington state, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts ? did not detail the state of their talks at the lunch meeting, but they have been having some one-on-one conversations filling in their colleagues on as much information as they can provide.
?I?ve had enough conversations with individual members to know they are struggling to come up with a constructive result,? Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told POLITICO.
The committee is trying to submit a proposal to the Congressional Budget Office by the end of the month in order to get an official cost estimate and a final deal before their Thanksgiving deadline to find at least $1.2 trillion worth of deficit savings over the next decade. If the committee approves a deal, both houses of Congress will have about a month to vote up or down on the proposal, which cannot be amended in either chamber or filibustered in the Senate.
Since the committee has an expansive jurisdiction, its proposal could potentially reshape major entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, overhaul the complex Tax Code and slash domestic programs ranging from agriculture to defense.
?They are on radio silence,? Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said with a laugh. ?I think there are 523 of us [who serve in Congress] who are nervous. ? I have people back home all the time asking me, ?What are they going to do???
Indeed, at least one Democratic senator posed that question directly to Murray at Thursday?s lunch, questioning when their caucus will be able to have input in the supercommittee?s work product. Murray said that policy committees have an opportunity to provide their recommendations to the panel by next Friday, attendees said.
And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) defended the panel?s secretive approach, saying, ?You can?t have a session, where Baucus, Kerry and Murray are interacting with us because they?re supposed to work with the committee,? one senator later recalled.
?Harry is protecting her, and he?s right, this is really hard,? said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). ?We really want to get something done, but it?s really going to be hard.?
Asked Thursday whether the panel could reach its $1.2 trillion goal, Kerry said in a brief interview, ?I?m not prognosticating.?
Republicans on the panel are also feeling pressure from their members. One Republican who serves on the supercommittee said that members have been fielding questions at nearly every closed-door caucus meeting on how the deficit talks are progressing.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, said he?s spoken to all the Democratic senators on the panel, and ?they think there?s hope.?
But even he said it was hard to say where the panel was in its deliberations.
?I haven?t gotten into any area of specifics,? he said.
Scott Wong contributed to this report.
freedom tower osama bin laden dead picture sept 11 never forget flight 93 shot down remembering 9/11 nfl schedule
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.