Bipartisan talks on the federal budget are set to kick off again after a weeklong pause, with Republicans and Democrats still far from agreement over the nation’s deficit and borrowing limit. There are just 10 weeks remaining until an Aug. 2 debt ceiling deadline set by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. It’s a seemingly generous amount of time but too short in the eyes of some lawmakers, who are wrestling with how deeply to cut the budget and whether to increase the debt ceiling, the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow.
Scores of Republicans have pledged to vote against raising the nation’s debt ceiling if spending is not cut drastically, imperiling the measure in Congress and possibly forcing the government to default on its loans for the first time.
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Despite months of debate, only one proposal has been advanced to address spending cuts, and that plan — written by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. — may come to the Senate floor for a vote this week.
Ryan’s proposal would reduce spending by $6 trillion over 10 years and reform Medicare and Medicaid. But it isn’t expected to muster the 60 votes needed to pass, mostly because senators, including Republicans, are fearful of tackling popular entitlement programs with the 2012 elections looming.
Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will bring Ryan’s proposal to the floor for a vote this week, no doubt motivated by the likelihood that some Republicans will vote against it, exposing an intraparty rift.
If the Ryan budget comes up for a vote, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he will bring to the floor Obama’s $3.73 trillion 2012 budget proposal, a move that could trip up some moderate and politically vulnerable Democratic senators eager to avoid being labeled big spenders.
With neither Ryan’s plan nor Obama’s budget expected to pass, an agreement on spending cuts and the debt ceiling is likely to be as far out of reach at the end of the week as it will be at the start.
Vice President Biden, meanwhile, will oversee a third round of bipartisan budget talks on Tuesday in hopes of breaking the impasse.
The first two meetings, held earlier this month, made hardly a dent in the wide array of differences between the two parties. Republicans continue to insist on big domestic spending cuts while Democrats are holding out for smaller reductions paired with tax increases.
Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a participant in the talks, said the two sides have found some “overlap” and agreed on about $150 billion in cuts, a tiny fraction of the $2 trillion the GOP said must be trimmed before they agree to vote on raising the debt ceiling by that same amount as Geithner requested.
“We are talking in the area of about $150 billion right now,” Kyl said. “That’s the nature of where we are right now, but we recognize we have to do a whole lot more than that.”
Kyl said defense spending as well as Medicare and Medicaid are all “on the table,” at least in the eyes of Republicans, although Democrats have blasted GOP entitlement reform proposals as too radical.
