Budget

Vice President Biden said first meeting was a productive discussion, but no agreements were reached.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) plans to throw another budget plan into the ring next week, when he unveils his own fiscal 2012 proposal.

The freshman senator will unveil a separate budget proposal Tuesday, which would balance the budget within nine years. 

"Right now, our country stands on the verge of a fiscal crisis,” Toomey said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that President Obama has refused to show the leadership our country needs. His 2012 budget only piles more spending and debt onto our already precarious finances. The purpose of my budget is to demonstrate that it is possible to balance our budget and put our country on a sustainable fiscal path."

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) introduced a bill Thursday that provides an avenue for the federal government to decrease its real estate holdings and save an estimated $15 billion over three years. 

Denham, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, has been working with the Obama administration for several months on a plan to decrease the inventory of mostly unused federal buildings.

He plans to hold hearings soon and plans to move quickly on the legislation.

The new round of budgetary negotiations led by Vice President Joe Biden will resume on Tuesday, the vice president said following Tuesday's meeting.

Biden issued a short statement following a meeting at Blair House with bipartisan congressional leaders intended to begin negotiations toward a comprehensive agreement on the nation's spending and debt.

"On behalf of all of us, let me say, we had a good, productive first meeting today," Biden said. "We plan to meet again on Tuesday and look forward to further discussions on these important challenges."

The talks included House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.), representing Republicans. Representing Democrats were Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.), Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Assistant House Minority Leader James Clyburn (S.C.) and House Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen (Md.).

The talks commence with an eye toward an impending fight over raising the debt ceiling. Biden said the two aren't naturally connected, but would likely be wedded due to politics and Republicans' demands that an increase in the debt limit be accompanied by spending cuts and reforms.

"We know we have two looming concerns. One is the debt limit," Biden said before the meeting. "They're not technically connected, but the fact of the matter is, practically and politically it's committed."

A Democratic participant in the new round of bipartisan deficit talks has stressed that new tax revenue would have to be part of any broad deal on the debt.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) specifically proposed rolling back tax credits and deductions used by the oil-and-gas industry on Thursday, the same day he entered the talks led by Vice President Joe Biden.

“I mean, come on,” Van Hollen, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I do not know why Republicans say we have to insist that taxpayers continue to subsidize the big oil companies when their profits are going through the roof. It's ridiculous.”

Speaker wants spending to be cut by trillions of dollars if debt ceiling is to be raised.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is heading to Wall Street as lawmakers in D.C. continue to search for an agreement on raising the federal debt ceiling and reining in the national deficit.

On Monday, Boehner will appear before the Economic Club of New York in Manhattan, where he might have to field some tough questions from financial gurus worried about how far lawmakers will push the debt-limit debate.

Although Boehner and other GOP leaders have acknowledged the $14.3 trillion debt limit must go up, he and other Republicans are still demanding major concessions before voting for an increase.

However, the financial experts that litter Wall Street have been essentially unanimous in telling Congress to not play games with the debt limit, echoing warnings from the White House that a default on U.S. debt would be an economic catastrophe.

The powerful seniors lobby called on Vice President Joe Biden and six congressional deficit negotiators to exempt Medicare and Social Security from any spending caps they are discussing in the context of raising the nation's debt ceiling.

“AARP recognizes the importance of confronting our nation’s fiscal challenges. But as leaders begin to hammer out solutions, we urge them not to subject Medicare and Social Security to arbitrary spending limits that could jeopardize the benefits that millions of older Americans have earned through a life time of hard work," AARP CEO Barry Rand said in a statement.

AARP this week launched an advertising campaign against any cuts to Medicare and Social Security as part of a deal to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which is estimated to be reached by May 16.

A left-leaning policy group concerned about economic fairness has released a report card on various budget proposals and, perhaps not surprisingly, the House GOP fiscal 2012 plan doesn’t fare so well.

In fact, Demos gives the budget largely fashioned by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) an F, hitting it for reducing public investment, being vague on its proposals for tax reform and for its overhauls of Medicare and Medicaid. 

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said he has no interest in "laying down more markers" that won't pass the Senate.