Budget

Six groups received $200,000 apiece in grants from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation on Thursday to develop solutions to the nation's federal budget deficits. 

With a total of $1.2 million in grants, the American Enterprise Institute, Bipartisan Policy Center, Center for American Progress, Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Heritage Foundation and Roosevelt Institute Campus Network are charged with developing "comprehensive plans for long-term fiscal sustainability." 

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s plan, which received funding through another of the foundation's initiatives, was released late last year around the time that President Obama's fiscal commission, led by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and Erskine Bowles, President Clinton's former chief of staff, put out their plan to reduce the deficit by nearly $4 trillion over 10 years.

"Grantees have complete discretion and independence to develop their own fiscal goals or targets and propose recommended packages of solutions and timeframes for achieving them," according to a Peterson Foundation release. 

House Republicans will get the opportunity next week to question the administration's top regulatory official about President Obama's new plan to review existing and pending regulations.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight subcommittee will hold a hearing next week on the regulatory framework, which Obama unveiled on Tuesday.

Cass Sunstein, the head of the administration's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will be the only witness at the hearing, slated for Jan. 26, full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said Thursday.

Ten-year plan includes cuts to perennial targets like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Kent Conrad's retirement provides the Senate Budget Committee chairman with two years to press onward with what could be some vastly unpopular spending-cut and policy suggestions to reduce the deficit. 

The North Dakota Democrat, who announced Tuesday that he won't run for reelection in 2012, has been outspoken on reining in spending for what he's called an "unsustainable" fiscal path for the nation. 

"What's critically important is that we have a comprehensive, long-term plan to deal with deficits and debt," he said during a recent interview with CNBC. "We are on a course that is simply unsustainable, and it needs to be addressed. But it is also the case that we have got to be careful with respect to the timing. We can't pivot too soon, or we jeopardize this recovery that is just gaining strength."

Conrad said his top priorities in the next two years include getting the federal budget on a sound fiscal course, reducing the nation's dependence on foreign energy and crafting a new farm bill. 

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare announced Tuesday it is launching a new $1 million advertising campaign to stop congressional or White House proposals that would cut Social Security benefits as part of any deficit-reduction plan.

Liberal groups are worried that the president will announce Social Security reform as an olive branch to Republicans in next week's State of the Union address.

Former Connecticut Rep. Barbara Kennelly and Social Security Coalition co-leaders Nancy Altman of Social Security Works and Roger Hickey from Campaign for America's Future will be featured in radio ads this week. 

The committee boasts more than 3 million members and supporters nationwide, and led the campaign to defeat then-President George W. Bush’s proposals on Social Security reform in 2005.

“The American people, in poll after poll, have said they do not support cutting benefits in the name of deficit reduction. They understand Social Security has not contributed one dime to our current fiscal meltdown, yet it’s clear Washington’s fiscal hawks intend to ratchet up their attacks on the program in the new Congress,” Kennelly said in a statement.

The first Democrat to announce retirement this cycle, Sen. Kent Conrad said he didn't want the distraction of a campaign.

House Republican freshmen lawmakers, elected on platforms to reduce spending and the deficit, are saying they're prepared to play hardball and vote against raising the debt ceiling in order to extract an agreement on possible budget cuts. 

If there's no agreement on what to cut from the federal budget by the time a vote rolls around, Rep. David Schweikert, (R-Ariz.) a freshman lawmaker, is positioning himself to vote against raising the nation's debt limit. 

"We're walking a bit of a tight rope," Schweikert said Monday on Fox News.

"I'm being asked to pay off the credit card for the crazy spending from this president and the House of Democrats," he said. "The problem is they've already spent the money. The bill is now coming due. So for someone like myself, you know, you look your constituents in the eyes and say, I cannot vote for this debt ceiling unless we have substantial, you know, systematic changes in spending."

The House Rules Committee announced Monday that it will vote Wednesday on a rule effectively setting a spending ceiling for the second half of fiscal 2011.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was given rare powers to unilaterally set the ceilings for the rest of 2011 in a rules package the House adopted this month. The powers were necessary since Congress never adopted a 2011 budget resolution. The new rule would guide Ryan to set ceilings that assume “a transition to non-security spending at fiscal 2008 levels.”

The hiring of Vice President Joe Biden’s new chief of staff Bruce Reed last week may bolster the chances that the administration and Congress can agree on a long-term deficit reduction package, sources said.

Reed most recently served as the executive director the president’s deficit commission and played a key role in drafting the plan by its chairman to reduce the nation’s debt. The mix of spending cuts, entitlement reform and tax reform gained bipartisan support by a surprising 11 out of 18 members of the commission. 

At issue is an administration policy that was announced in September 2009 by the outgoing White House ethics czar.