Budget

Senate Republicans are pushing their Democratic colleagues to move forward with a 2012 budget, saying it’s time for the chamber to show some leadership on fiscal issues. 

Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the Budget Committee's ranking member, and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), the panel's newest member, wrote in a letter dated Monday that the two parties needed to come together on the complicated task of reducing spending and deficits. 

“This is the most important budget debate in our lifetime. Future generations will judge us based on the actions we take at this pivotal juncture,” says the letter, signed by all 47 GOP senators and sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “As we watch countries like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal forced into severe austerity measures and risking default because of unsustainable spending decisions, we believe it is necessary to reduce our spending and deficits to ensure we do not suffer the same fate.”

Close to six in 10 said Social Security didn't need to be cut; 54 percent said the same of Medicare.

Congressional investigators led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are widening a probe into potential insider trading by SAC Capital Advisors.

Banks' outsize role in the housing market might be weighing heavily on that ailing market.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde seems to have the inside track to become the next head of the International Monetary Fund.

A Washington Post fact-checker gives the thumbs-up to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on his attacks of President Obama's tax proposal.

The stock market could be in for a rough day today.

But optimists are counting on another rally in the coming months.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced Friday that a day earlier he introduced a budget resolution that will balance the federal budget within five years, without touching Social Security or Medicare.

“The budget resolution, or S. Con. Res. 20, results in a $19 billion surplus upon balancing, and does so without raising any taxes or changing Social Security or Medicare during the budget window,” a statement from his office states.

The budget resolution merely calls on committees to reform Social Security and Medicare, an indication Paul does not want to get embroiled in the fight over the House-passed budget which calls for Medicare to be turned into a type of voucher system.

The Paul budget balances by spending cuts alone. Overall spending is brought down to 18 percent of gross domestic product by 2016, down from 24 percent.

Instead of going after these entitlements, Paul slashes discretionary spending by $288 billion in 2012 and another $89 billion in 2013. He also cuts other mandatory spending by $248 billion in 2012.

Medicaid, children’s health insurance and food stamps are block-granted to the States and capped in the resolution.

Paul eliminates the departments of Commerce, Energy, Education, and Housing and Urban Development, all of which he says are unconstitutional.

Deficit talks led by Vice President Joe Biden will resume on Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney announced Friday. The group has met three times before and took a break this week for the House recess.

The talks are aimed at coming up with a "down payment," as Biden put it, on deficit reduction. The GOP has said it wants to see trillions in cuts to spending in exchange for raising the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling before it is reached, in the estimate of the Treasury Department, on Aug. 2.

Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.); Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) are involved in the talks. 

Kyl said this week about $150 billion in cuts to mandatory programs had been found, an early achievement that has given the talks momentum. Sources say that one of the cuts being talked about is in the contribution by the federal government to federal worker retirement plans. The move is opposed by Washington, D.C.-area representatives and by unions.

The major issues such as tax reform, tax increases, and entitlement reform are all "on the table" Biden has said, but they have not been negotiated yet.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) has tried to recruit Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to replace Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on the Gang of Six deficit talks, but a Portman spokeswoman said the Ohio senator is not weighing joining.

Kirk is not a member of the Gang of Six talks, but he is a supporter of the fiscal commission approach of spending cuts and tax reforms that the gang was negotiating.

“I talked to Rob about this yesterday, and I think he’s reticent and he needs to be invited to this group,” Kirk said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday. 

Kirk said that given Portman’s past as a Bush budget director, he would give “gravitas” to the gang, which has suffered since the loss of Coburn on Tuesday.

Portman press secretary Christine Mangi said her boss is not considering joining the group, however. She declined to say why her boss is not seeking membership.

Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have continued to meet as a gang of five seeking a comprehensive deficit negotiation. Conservatives have said that if the product cannot convince Coburn, however, there is no way to sell it to House Republicans who are even less willing to compromise on entitlement cuts or tax increases.

The hospital lobby warned its members Thursday that their Medicare and Medicaid payments would be at risk under almost any deficit-reduction proposal.

“Hospitals are wary that formula-driven, arbitrary budget targets, such as the ones outlined in several proposals … would result in across-the-board cuts to health care,” the American Hospital Association wrote in an alert. “We will continue to oppose the use of a trigger that could impede patients' access to care and further exacerbate the 'cost-shift,' which would increase health care costs to employers and other purchasers of private coverage.”

Hospitals could see “enormous” Medicare and Medicaid cuts under the overall spending trigger proposed by Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the association said. House Republicans’ budget would keep cuts enacted through healthcare reform while repealing the law’s coverage expansion, and it also would cut Medicaid by more than $700 billion.

Senate Budget Committee chief will hold off pending the outcome of deficit talks led by Vice President Joe Biden.

WHERE WE STAND:

If you’re waiting for a Senate budget, don’t hold your breath.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Thursday that Democrats had decided to put off a budget markup for the foreseeable future, to allow the discussions currently being led by Vice President Joe Biden to run their course.

Biden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are working to find a deficit-reduction deal that could attract enough support to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. Conrad said the budget process on Capitol Hill might be needed as a vehicle, should those talks come to fruition.

There’s little doubt: Republicans want you to know that it’s been 750 days since the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a budget. 

Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — the ranking members of the Senate Budget and Finance panels, respectively — took to the chamber floor on Thursday to highlight that point.