Warner talks debt deal and the future
By JR Hoeft | Sunday, July 31st, 2011 | Policy
I had the opportunity to correspond late last night with Kevin Hall, spokesman for U.S. Senator Mark Warner, about the senator’s principles on the current debt crisis and where he stands on the debate ongoing in Washington DC.
Ultimately, Warner will support Reid’s plan, which is set to be voted for cloture today at 1 p.m.
Regarding the dueling Boehner/Reid Plans, here’s what Hall had to say:
Senator Warner voted to table the House legislation because Standard & Poor’s specifically said that it would not look favorably on any plan that required Congress to repeatedly revisit the debt ceiling issue without establishing a longer-term framework for actually reducing the debt. Warner also is not a big fan of balanced budget amendments: it’s not a timely solution, and it also tends to be gimmicky. Look no further than California, which has a state constitutional requirement for balanced budgets. I don’t think anyone could argue that California has met that requirement.
Senator Warner does not believe the Senate proposal, at least what we know of it, is perfect. Yet it proposes to make a larger down-payment than the House on the deficit and debt, and it would allow more time for the House and Senate to come up with a more comprehensive plan for tackling our $14 trillion national debt.
So, it’s clear BBA is out with Warner, even though we in Virginia have been quite successful with it. And that he will be supporting Reid’s plan today.
However, as most of you are aware, Warner is a key negotiator and has been attempting to craft a deal with the so-called “Gang of Six” (3 Republicans and 3 Democrats in the Senate) to work us out of this budget mess.
As recently reported in Politico:
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), also one of the six, moved among sympathetic Republicans on the Senate floor, and Reid took care to pay heed to the Gang’s work, and this could yet be an avenue to bring over Republicans.
“I’m a total Gang of Six guy,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). “So if there’s any way that could be brought forward, I’m for it.”
I asked Hall what this meant? Do we expect to see anything from the “Gang of Six” today or in the near future?
“Remember that [Sen. Warner has] spent hundreds of hours over the last seven months negotiating these very issues with GOP Sens. Tom Coburn, Mike Crapo and Saxby Chambliss. And the framework unveiled by the Gang of Six a week and a half ago is the only comprehensive approach so far that has demonstrated it can earn bipartisan support in this town: at least 36 Senators, about evenly divided among D’s and R’s, have publicly embraced the bipartisan Gang of Six framework as a good starting point for a roadmap that trims almost four trillion dollars through spending cuts, entitlement and tax reforms.”
As I read that, one can only consider that part of the deal is to create a joint legislative commission to figure out how to come up with $1.8 trillion in additional revenue or spending cuts. If that is the case, it would not be difficult to see Warner as part of that commission given his leadership in the Senate and Democratic majority status.
But what surprised me is that Hall said, “Senator Warner does not have a lot of confidence that the new “committee” of twelve House and Senate lawmakers included in both Boehner’s and Reid’s bills ultimately will be able to get the job done.”
As this is fundamental in ensuring we continue to progress towards balancing with cuts/new revenues the $2+ trillion debt limit increase in the bill, one has to be concerned about the skepticism.
Perhaps that skepticism is rightfully driven by the last debt commission established almost 17 months ago that yielded little results from both the administration and Congress.
Therefore, Warner is still working.
“Now that House and Senate leaders are actually negotiating the outlines of consensus legislation, Warner is looking to see if he might be able to enlist some GOP support to include a mechanism that allows this Gang of SIx framework to receive an up-or-down vote as a “fall-back” or “backstop” in the event the proposed Boehner/Reid committee fails to produce a credible long-range plan,” Hall said.
I’ll leave it at that for you, the reader, to offer your commentary. But I thank Kevin and the Senator for engaging with BD at this incredibly important time in or nation’s history.
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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Comments
7 Responses to "Warner talks debt deal and the future"
I would like to know why Mark and his fellow senate democrats have not passed a budget in 823 days.
And what is the dollar amount of the 2012 budget.
why didn’t WArner tell us Virginians that he didn’t like our balanced budget reqmt when he was running for Governor? because he knew we wouldn’t elect him?
this guy hugs Schumer after the Obamacare vote. think on that.
JR reports : Senator Warner does not have a lot of confidence that the new “committee” of twelve House and Senate lawmakers included in both Boehner’s and Reid’s bills ultimately will be able to get the job done.”
He’s skeptical for good reason. He knows Dems including himself have no intention of following through on any deal. His “moderation” is totally phony PR nonsense, but Repubs are infatuated with it.
Actually, Warner is one of the few politicians that understands the fiscal impact of government expenditures on the general health of the economy, and his comments review a perception of reality that is much more truthful than the republican mantra of cut expenditures, cut taxes. Fact is, lost in all this self imposed jibberish about raising the debt ceiling is the question of what is the fiscal impact of the republican imposed cuts on the economy. With this draconian approach, the republicans will own the failure of the economy to grow, they will own the curtailment of growth in the GDP, and they will be responsible for higher unemployment and the loss of more jobs. When the bond rating is lowered, it will be an acknowledgment that the economy will be further strained by loss of more jobs and income, and now we will know exactly who to excoriate. The republicans will have created another recession, and they will own it in the next election cycle.
mike, the Republicans will create another recession? when do you think we will climb out the one we’re in now?
we’re spending money we don’t have. we’re borrowing from people who hate us. it is a house of cards.
if Mark Warner doesn’t want to cut spending, then he continues to be part of the problem.
“…the framework unveiled by the Gang of Six a week and a half ago is the only comprehensive approach so far that has demonstrated it can earn bipartisan support in this town”
And this is why we will fail. Economics is math (logical), and politics is a popularity contest (emotional).
“…a roadmap that trims almost four trillion dollars through spending cuts, entitlement and tax reforms.”
A figure which completely ignores the fact that it grows the debt at an alarming rate not seen prior to the onset of this crisis some three years ago. It sounds like a lot, until you remember that it is cuts over ten years. Hell, why did they choose ten years as the threshold for crediting these ephemeral cuts? Why not a hundred years? Then we could tell everyone we’re cutting $40 Trillion and our problems would be solved!
And yet, people are fooled. We’re freaking doomed.
As far as the dems and the MIC RINOs are concerned, this is the new normal. The destruction of the buying power of the USD is virtually guaranteed. Invest accordingly.
Do not be distracted by the contemporaneous EU meltdown (Italian banks are failing as we speak). Paper currencies, along with any assets denominated in them, are dead men walking.
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