Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday sent a letter to Republicans demanding a bipartisan meeting to lift the “sequester” spending caps mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his deputies said in the letter that the Budget Control Act, which brought on the unpopular sequester, was meant to bring about bipartisan budget talks. Those talks should happen now, Democrats said, to raise spending levels.
“We write to urge you to immediately schedule bipartisan budget negotiations for next week to find a fair, reasonable and responsible path forward for funding key national priorities such as national defense and domestic investments in education, health, science, and infrastructure,” said the letter, which was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his deputies.
Democratic lawmakers plan to publicly demand a budget meeting with Republicans at a press conference later today. They have been threatening to block all spending bills until Republicans relent and agree to negotiate a deal to lift the caps across the government, instead of only allowing defense spending to exceed the caps.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has so far refused to hold bipartisan negotiations and has instead called on Democrats to support spending bills now pending in the Senate.
Republicans anticipate that a deal with President Obama to lift the caps could happen in the fall, as the fiscal year comes to a close.
Here is the text of the letter:
Dear Leader McConnell, Majority Whip Cornyn, Conference Chairman Thune, Policy Chairman Barrasso, and Vice Conference Chairman Blunt:
We write to urge you to immediately schedule bipartisan budget negotiations for next week to find a fair, reasonable and responsible path forward for funding key national priorities such as national defense and domestic investments in education, health, science, and infrastructure.
As you know, the purpose of the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011 was to force Republicans and Democrats to negotiate a good faith, transparent budget agreement that produced $1.5 trillion in balanced deficit reduction measures. Included in that law was a legislative mechanism known as “sequestration,” a tool designed to encourage Congress to come up with the desired deficit reduction in the law or face its automatic, arbitrary cuts in federal spending.
Members of both parties have long agreed that the automatic and across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration are neither smart, nor an effective means to budget for our national defense and our domestic investment priorities. In fact, in a number of speeches you gave on the Senate floor in February of 2013, you called on President Obama and Democrats to work with Republicans on a “thoughtful alternative” to sequestration because the American people expect both parties to work together “to get things done with the government we have.” We couldn’t agree more.
Two years ago, we repeatedly asked you and your colleagues in the House of Representatives to enter into a budget conference with us. You repeatedly refused. In the end, and only after a damaging and unnecessary government shutdown, we reached a bipartisan budget compromise that lifted the sequestration-level spending caps for Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015. We’re disappointed to see you pursuing a go-it-alone appropriations strategy designed to fail instead of seeking bipartisan solutions that can pass the Senate and be signed into law.
Simply put, sequestration was — and still is — a mechanism that is supposed to precipitate bipartisan negotiations. However, today, despite repeated requests from Congressional Democrats for bipartisan negotiations, Republicans are writing partisan Fiscal Year 2016 spending bills at sequestration spending levels. Unfortunately, you have yet to convene a single bipartisan meeting to discuss building on the Murray-Ryan budget negotiations of 2013 with another bipartisan deal that would allow the Appropriations Committees to do their work and avoid another unnecessary government shutdown.
We are alarmed that you have not displayed a greater sense of urgency to address this problem. The Congressional Budget Office has previously said sequestration will lead to job losses and stifle economic growth. At a time when the annual deficit has fallen by roughly two-thirds since the enactment of the Budget Control Act and the unemployment rate is falling and wage increases are starting to gain steam, failing to fix the sequestration-level budget would be a blow to our economic recovery.
We are ready and willing to work with you to produce a fair and balanced Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. Therefore, we respectfully request you schedule the first round of these important negotiations as soon as next week.
Sincerely,
HARRY REID, United States Senator
RICHARD J. DURBIN, United States Senator
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, United States Senator
PATTY MURRAY, United States Senator
