Posted on 07/14/2011 9:50:55 AM PDT by maggief
Talks among the remaining members of the Senate’s Gang of Six have gained new momentum in recent days as negotiations between President Obama and congressional leaders have faltered.
The five active members of the gang met for two and a half hours in the office of Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) Wednesday evening to eat dinner and make a penultimate push to a deal.
The sixth member, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who had taken a hiatus from the group, says he is thinking about returning, and has given the group a new round of deficit-reduction proposals to consider.
Aides to the Gang of Six members — who have taken to calling the members “five guys” since Coburn left — worked late into the night to put their progress into writing.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of the members of the group, said he and his colleagues made a lot of progress Wednesday. Several members also met earlier in the day.
“We’ve worked tonight, made a lot of progress,” he said Wednesday. “We got people reducing things to writing tonight, and tomorrow and we’ll see when we get back together tomorrow if people want to go forward.”
The remaining members of the gang — Conrad, Warner, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) — planned to meet again Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
The group, which has struggled for months to put out a plan, now senses a new round of urgency with the debt-limit deadline approaching in August and talks over a corresponding plan to cut the deficit stalled at the White House. People familiar with the talks say the group is looking at a wide-range of cuts and revenue raisers and wants to show that a compromise can be reached amid hardening partisan lines in Washington. The latest proposal is at least the 14th draft the group has put out throughout its more than six months of talks.
They would be better suited do work on something they should know. How to repeal all of obama’s programs and regulations.
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