WASHINGTON — Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss plans to huddle yet again today with the bipartisan Gang of Six as they try to devise a way to succeed where the supercommittee has failed in crafting a long-term plan to tackle the nation’s debt.
But don’t expect a bill anytime soon.
“The fact that the supercommittee couldn’t come up with anything means that whatever piece of legislation we can come up with is going to have to have some policy decisions in it that incorporate a way forward on reforming Medicare, Medicaid and the tax code and doing it in the right way,” Chambliss said. “And that’s not going to be easy, No. 1. And there’s a question of whether we can do that in the next 30 days.”
The politics are incredibly challenging, both in the fractured Congress and at home for Chambliss, where a new poll commissioned by Channel 2 Action News shows him in peril for a potential re-election race in 2014.
Chambliss and Virginia Democrat Mark Warner co-chaired a group of six senators that met frequently in the first half of the year to find about $4 trillion in long-term savings that economists say is necessary to stabilize the nation’s spiraling deficits. They based their work on the recommendations of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission, which was headed by former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, and advocated for a mix of program cuts and increased revenue to bridge the partisan gap.
The Gang of Six — which also included Sens. Tom Corburn, R-Okla.; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; and Kent Conrad, D-N.D. — never produced a bill but did release a five-page list of recommendations in July to mixed reviews. Chambliss said today’s meeting also will include Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns and Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet, who have become a core part of the gang’s effort to build a wider coalition.
They recruited about 40 more senators and more than 100 House members to their cause and urged the supercommittee to follow in their footsteps, but the 12-member group created in the Aug. 2 deal to raise the nation’s debt limit could not get past basic disagreements on tax revenue versus entitlement cuts.
The Gang of Six framework goes far beyond the rejected Republican supercommittee offer of $300 billion in new tax revenue. It estimates $1 trillion in new revenue by reducing tax rates, while eliminating certain deductions and loopholes. On tax reform and other aspects it leaves most of the details to Senate committees while setting benchmarks.
The framework calls for budget caps and restrictions on the growth of health care spending, in addition to program cuts. The total is about $3.7 trillion in savings from the Congressional Budget Office baseline in March — but much has changed since then in the country’s fiscal outlook, as the debt ceiling deal required $2.1 trillion in savings.
“The proposal we had on the table has got to be modified to reflect the changes,” Chambliss said.
During the supercommittee deliberations, Chambliss said a Gang of Six bill could be produced “in short order” — but now Chambliss is doubtful about producing something this year.
“The fact that supercommittee did nothing has changed things more than I had realized,” he said. “If they had done something we would have been able to play off of that, but doing nothing changed the game a little bit.”
As he tries to forge compromise in D.C., Chambliss’ popularity is sinking at home, according a poll to be released Monday by Channel 2 Action News. Matt Towery, chairman of Insider Advantage Georgia, who conducted the poll, called the results “catastrophic” for Chambliss as substantially more voters disapprove of him than approve.
Any deficit reduction deal that increases tax revenue, Towery said, is anathema to the state’s Republicans, who have grown steadily more conservative.
“Even just being a part of the Gang of Six is just plain stupid because it doesn’t reflect what the people in Georgia who are his supporters want,” Towery said.
Chambliss has said repeatedly that he is running for re-election in 2014, but Towery said Chambliss’ Gang of Six work appears more like a retiring senator looking to burnish a legacy.
“Maybe he wants to be a statesman, and that’s not so bad,” Towery said.
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