Baucus: We need revenue, and fast

By Bernie Becker - 12/04/12 01:26 PM ET

The Senate’s top tax writer said Tuesday that Washington needed to agree to new revenues this month, and shouldn’t punt tough decisions on spending and taxes into the next Congress.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Finance Committee, said that policymakers could move on to a longer-term deficit deal after taking care of the looming spending cuts and tax increases going into effect around the end of the year.

“To give families and businesses certainty, we must agree in the next few weeks on specific spending cuts and revenue increases that reduce the deficit to avoid the fiscal cliff,” Baucus said at an event sponsored by the Campaign to Fix the Debt

The Montana Democrat’s comments come after House Republicans sent the White House a $2.2 trillion counteroffer on Monday that included $800 billion in new revenue – but not through higher rates.

President Obama’s administration has pushed for $1.6 trillion in new revenue, with more than half of that coming from immediately allowing tax rates for the highest earners on income, capital gains and dividends to rise.

Obama has also said he won’t sign any bill that doesn’t include rate increases for the wealthy.

In his speech, Baucus stressed that policymakers shouldn’t effectively punt by extending all current tax rates and delaying automatic spending cuts – something that some analysts and business groups have suggested doing.

“We should not put off the hard decisions with gimmicks or triggers,” said Baucus, who served on last year’s supercommittee, the failure of which set up the looming automatic cuts.

“That’s what got us here in the first place. It’s time to bite the bullet and make the tough decisions, and make them now.”

After taking care of those immediate issues, the Finance chairman added that Washington can turn to longer-lasting entitlement and tax reform.

“We are simply not raising enough revenue,” Baucus said. “We need real, significant new revenue this month. Once that revenue is locked in, we can then turn to overhauling our tax code for the modern economy.”