The Senate reconvened at 10 AM today and resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1323, a nonbinding Sense of the Senate resolution offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). S.1323 says people making over $1 million per year should be required to “sacrifice” in resolving the budget deficit. No votes are scheduled for today.
Yesterday, Reid pulled the Libya resolution, S.J. Res. 20, from the floor, and instead filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1323. A cloture vote is scheduled tomorrow on the motion to proceed to S. 1323.
The Washington Post writes today, “President Obama on Tuesday rejected calls for a short-term increase in the legal limit on government borrowing and summoned congressional leaders to the White House to restart negotiations over a long-term plan to restrain the deepening national debt. With an Aug. 2 deadline closing in, Obama urged lawmakers in both parties to break the stalemate that halted talks nearly two weeks ago and seize what he called ‘a unique opportunity to do something big’ to rebalance the nation’s finances.”
Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Yesterday I accepted the President’s invitation to the White House to discuss what the two parties can do together to reduce our nation’s out-of-control deficit and debt, to create jobs and to put the American economy back on solid footing. . . . Thursday’s meeting will give us the chance to see if the President means what he says. It’s an opportunity to see if the President is finally willing to agree on a serious plan to pay our bills without killing jobs in the process.”
Unfortunately, Leader McConnell pointed out, “Until now, the President’s proposals have been inadequate and, frankly, indefensible. It’s ludicrous for the administration to propose raising hundreds of billions in taxes at a time when 14 million Americans are looking for work and job creators are struggling.”
Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, “Democrats have floated ideas that could raise tax revenues by some $400 billion over the next decade as they negotiate deficit reductions with Republicans, according to people familiar with the plan, posing the most contentious issue as talks reach a critical stage this week.” In fact, Democrats have been fixated on the idea of tax hikes over the last few weeks, with Vice President Joe Biden even saying that “the pieces most important to us Democrats [are] revenue.”
As Leader McConnell explained, “Just this last December the President acknowledged that preventing a tax hike meant more resources were available for job creators to add employees. Does the President now think the economy is doing so well, that unemployment is so low and economic growth so rapid that we can take billions of dollars away from these very same job creators?”
Meanwhile, Reuters noted recently that “Democratic leaders called . . . for new spending” as part of debt negotiations. Leader McConnell said, “It’s equally ludicrous to propose more stimulus spending as part of a deficit reduction package. Republicans and, yes, some Democrats oppose those ideas because they won’t solve the debt crisis and they won’t create jobs. . . . Americans expect that in a negotiation about a debt crisis that we actually do something to significantly reduce the debt. And with so many still out of work, we expect the President to not insist on proposals that his own administration says will put even more on the unemployment line. . . . We don’t think it’s absolutist to oppose more stimulus spending. We don’t think it’s maximalist to oppose hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis. We’d have a better term for it: common sense.”
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