–Senate Budget Committee Chief Hopes Plan Sparks Bipartisan Talks
–Sen. Conrad: Need to ‘Start The Negotiation and Discussion Now’
–Sen. Conrad: Budget Votes Before The Election Won’t Be Helpful

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad
Tuesday said he will introduce the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction
plan as his fiscal year 2013 budget resolution, but will not force a
Senate vote on the plan before the November election.

At a briefing, Conrad said he will formally present the
Simpson-Bowles plan Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee and
have a full discussion of the plan.

Conrad said he hopes that re-introducing the Simpson-Bowles plan
ignites serious fiscal talks and serves as the basis of intense budget
talks over the coming months.

But he said he will not bring the plan to a vote until later, when
a bipartisan consensus emerges.

“The is the wrong time to vote in committee. This is the wrong time
to vote in the Senate,” Conrad said.

“The time is not yet right,” Conrad said, adding that a premature
vote would set back deficit reduction efforts.

Conrad said the Simpson-Bowles plan calls for more than $5.4
trillion in deficit reduction over a decade, with a mix of spending cuts
and tax increases. It would reduce spending to about 22% of GDP by 2022
and bring revenues up to about 21% of GDP in 2022.

“It’s comprehensive. It’s balanced. It’s fair,” Conrad said of the
package.

Conrad said the Simpson-Bowles plan must be adjusted because it was
developed nearly two years ago and significant economic events have
occurred since then, including last summer’s debt limit agreement.

“The commission (Simpson-Bowles) plan needs adjustment,” Conrad
said, adding that it must be “fully updated.”

Conrad said that developing a bipartisan budget agreement will take
“weeks and weeks and months and months” of negotiations.

“We need to start the negotiation and discussion now,” Conrad said,
adding “it’s going to take time.”

The Senate Budget panel chief says the Simpson-Bowles plan can
“provide a blueprint for going forward” and securing a bipartisan budget
accord.

Conrad said the expiration of Bush era tax cuts at the end of the
year and the triggering of across-the-board spending cuts in January of
2013 may serve as “forcing events” for bipartisan budget talks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he doesn’t expect
the full Senate to debate any budget resolution this spring.

Reid has said last year’s debt ceiling agreement has already
settled discretionary spending levels for the coming fiscal year, which
is one of the central purposes of a budget resolution.

Budget resolutions set broad spending and revenue goals and make
deficit projections. They are congressional blueprints and are not
binding law. To actually change spending and tax laws, separate
legislation is needed.

Several weeks ago, the House approved House Budget Committee
Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget resolution on a 228 to 191 vote. All
Democrats opposed the GOP budget; all Republicans, except for 10, voted
for Ryan’s plan.

Ryan has said his budget would cut spending by $5 trillion more
than would Obama’s budget over a decade and would reduce deficits by
$3.3 trillion more than would the president’s budget.

Ryan’s budget makes deep cuts in the projected growth of federal
spending and endorses a fundamental overhaul of Medicare, Medicaid and
welfare programs. It also calls for repealing the 2010 health care law.

Ryan’s budget backs the extension of Bush-era tax cuts and
undertaking fundamental tax reform in which the current six individual
rates would be collapsed into two rates, 10% and 25%. The corporate rate
would be cut to 25%. He argues that so-called tax expenditures should
be sharply curtailed, but does not say which ones should be eliminated
or reduced.

Ryan’s budget sets FY’13 discretionary spending at $1.028 trillion,
$19 billion below the $1.047 trillion that was allowed for in last
summer’s debt ceiling agreement.

Ryan also calls for enacting a package of spending cuts to prevent
the $110 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that are scheduled to
begin next January.

** MNI Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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