WASHINGTON—A year ago, the Gang of Six thought it had found its moment.
With great fanfare and an outpouring of support from its fellow senators, the bipartisan group led by Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner delivered an outline of their plan to rescue the nation from ever-rising budget deficits.
But the outline never became a bill, and the Aug. 2 crisis-averting deal to raise the federal borrowing limit brought another failed bipartisan effort — the "supercommittee" — and another crisis due at the end of this year with sharp cuts to military and domestic spending.
And the Gang of Six once again thinks it has found its moment.
The difference, Chambliss, Warner and their allies argue, is the involvement of big business, in the form of a $25 million Fix the Debt public advocacy campaign unveiled this month, and a Congress finally ready for a deal that includes increased tax revenue and major reforms to Medicare and Social Security.
"If we don't do this now," Warner said, "we all deserve to get fired."
Warner, the fast-talking former governor and venture capital executive, has worked on the issue for nearly two years with Chambliss, the even-keeled Washington veteran taking a major political risk with his conservative base in Georgia.
The beginnings of their Gang of Six came in late 2010 as a presidential commission led by former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, and former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a Republican, put forth its plan.
The Gang of Six — which also includes Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; and Kent Conrad, D-N.D. — sought to turn the outline of Bowles-Simpson into legislation that could get through the bitterly divided Congress, but disagreements over tax revenue and entitlement programs persist.
Moving targets
For now, they are still tinkering with a deal to save between $4 trillion and $6 trillion against projected future deficits, but the numbers are a moving target as federal spending and economic conditions shift.
The political target is even more elusive.
Democrats are wary of any serious changes to Medicare, the seniors' health care entitlement program. The outline put forth last year by the Gang of Six mostly left Medicare reforms to Senate committees, with the goal of limiting yearly federal health spending growth to 1 percent more than the gross domestic product.
The Gang of Six has proposed a tax overhaul that reduces income tax rates but eliminates many deductions, aiming for $1 trillion in extra revenue. Republicans have resisted any increase in tax revenue, and nearly all Republicans in Congress have signed a no-new-taxes pledge put forth by Washington activist Grover Norquist.
Because Republicans held firm against revenue increases in the debt ceiling deal last year, Norquist said, they have no incentive to do so now, ahead of the fall elections.
"These jokers have not even written down in legislative form Simpson-Bowles yet, but now we're going to get serious about it? How about writing it down if it's a good idea?" said Norquist, who considers Simpson-Bowles to be a $5 trillion tax hike. He added, "It's because it's not written down that everybody can sort of see what they want to in it."
Aside from the unresolved details, Chambliss said the group is reluctant to produce a bill now because it would be politically toxic in election season. The group plans to have a framework in place for the lame-duck congressional session in November and December.
Norquist argued that if the Republicans have seized control of the Senate and the White House in the fall elections, they will hold out until 2013 and pass the budget put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which reduces taxes and turns Medicare into a private voucher-type system for future beneficiaries.
If the election preserves divided government of some kind, Norquist said the likely outcome is an extension of current policy similar to what happened in 2010.
This year's lame-duck session will be hectic and tense. Tax rates for all Americans are scheduled to rise Jan. 1 with the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts. Democrats are pushing to allow the rates to rise only for top earners, while Republicans are trying to maintain them for all taxpayers.
In addition, big budget cuts for the military and domestic programs are due in January, when a slew of policies from long-term unemployment benefits to Medicare physician payment rates also expire. Economic experts warn that inaction on the "fiscal cliff" could plunge the nation back into recession.
Chambliss said the Gang of Six framework will address all of those issues but leave most of the details to congressional committees to be worked out in 2013.
Maya MacGuineas, of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, who has worked closely with the group, said allowing a collaborative solution to come through committees is a key part of the process — but it must not mimic the debt ceiling deal, which lawmakers are scrambling to undo.
"There has to be some kind of trigger which you actually trust this time, because people don't have a lot of faith in Congress to stick to its own rules," she said.
CEOs get involved
MacGuineas said a crucial factor will be building support outside the Capitol. The Fix the Debt group includes a range of politicos and CEOs, including former Georgia Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn.
Business leaders — including CEOs from Georgia whom Chambliss declined to name — have brought a new perspective as they were invited to Washington-area discussions over the past several months, according to the participants.
Honeywell CEO David Cote, who came forward publicly, said he was moved by the economic forces at stake: "The debt problem can be addressed one of two ways. The first is proactively and thoughtfully, the way a great nation does. The second is to wait until the bond market forces us to do it."
Chambliss said he is glad for the help, recalling the debt ceiling standoff that roiled financial markets and caused the first-ever downgrade of U.S. debt by Standard and Poor's.
"The fact is that during the debt ceiling debate, the business community stayed on the sidelines, and they realize now that that was a mistake," he said.
Chambliss and Warner have become the primary evangelists for a major budget deal, from their countless hours poring over budget data to travels around the country to promote the ideas.
"If it weren't for them, we might still be stuck in our partisan boxes of denial," MacGuineas said.
But for Chambliss, who has said "everything is on the table," it has brought whispers of a GOP primary challenge in 2014.
"I don't think Republican primary voters want compromise," said Stuart Rothenberg, a veteran congressional campaign analyst and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report. "They want somebody to go to Washington and reject anything the Democrats are looking at."
Chambliss said any wariness of the Gang of Six back home is due to misinformation, and he will promote this course every chance he gets.
"When our proposal came out, some people immediately said, 'Well, they're supporting a tax increase.' That has never been the case," Chambliss said. "Certainly anything you do when you step into a controversial issue, you're taking political risk, but what I've always figured is I was sent here to do the right thing, and when you do the right thing, the politics takes care of itself."
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