The Hill: Coburn rejoins Gang of Six, backs $3.7T deficit-reduction plan

By Alexander Bolton and Erik Wasson - 07/19/11 10:38 AM ET

Democratic and Republican senators are rallying behind a $3.7 trillion deficit reduction plan unveiled Tuesday morning by the five remaining members of the Gang of Six.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who pulled out of the Gang of Six in May, has rejoined the group and praised the plan as something that could win the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate.

“The plan has moved significantly and it’s where we need to be and it’s a start,” Coburn said. “This doesn’t solve our problems but it creates the way forward where we can solve our problems.”

“There’s a lot of support for turning the gang into a mob,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who said he would support the gang's plan.

Coburn said it would reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over the next ten years and increase tax revenues by $1 trillion by closing a variety of special tax breaks and havens.

Coburn, however, noted the Congressional Budget Office would score the plan as a $1.5 trillion tax cut because it would eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax. It would generate a significant amount of revenue out of tax reform and reduction of tax rates, which authors believe would spur economic growth.

Coburn said he expected a “significant portion of the Senate” to support the plan, “maybe sixty members.”

He endorsed the plan to colleagues during Tuesday’s meeting, according to a lawmaker who attended.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) said the plan negotiated by the remaining members of the Gang of Six, Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), could win a majority of votes in the Senate.

“Likely 60,” she said. “The House should like this plan because it has spending cuts and I believe it will spur the economy.”

Hutchison said she would vote for it and urged House Republicans to back it as well.

“It think that they have produced something that has mechanisms that are concrete and that’s what I think what the House is looking for and we are,” she said.

"The gang of six-plus is back," Warner declared after the meeting.

Conrad said the Gang has given their colleagues 24 hours to say whether they are on board and the signs are encouraging since Republicans and Democrats in the room stood up to support the framework.

"We need to get to 60 senators. Six senators cannot pass anything," he said. Conrad said he does not know if the framework can be used to resolve the debt ceiling crisis but that could be a “possibility” if enough senators sign on.

He said that Coburn was enticed to rejoin the group because the Gang agreed to add $116 billion in heathcare entitlement savings to the framework. He said the way the extra reductions are achieved is up to Senate committees, but the framework specifies that if the target savings is not achieved 10 senators can propose a way to do so on the Senate floor and have the plan receive expedited treatment on the floor.

Conrad said that 74 percent of the plan's deficit-reduction goal would come from spending cuts and 26 percent from higher revenues.

More than 50 senators, including an even mix of Democrats and Republicans, attended a briefing by the architects of the plan.

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), who coauthored a letter in March urging President Obama to support a comprehensive deficit reduction package, which received 64 signatures, said the remaining members of the Gang of Six have produced a politically viable plan.

“This is a very thoughtful, serious plan,” Johanns said. “I have now seen the presentation half a dozen times and each time I have seen it I have become more and more convinced that this is the vehicle that gives us the best opportunity to deal with a whole range of issues. I’m excited about the possibilities here.”

Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) and John Thune (S.D.) also attended Tuesday’s meeting.

Democrats also praised the plan.

“Count me in,” he said. “I’ve long held this is what we need to do. The credit agencies are saying it’s not enough to take care of the debt limit. We have to take care of the long-term fiscal scenario.”

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who led the March letter-writing effort with Johanns, said the gang’s proposal received a warm reception from Republicans and Democrats in Tuesday’s meeting.

“We need to make sure that the capital markets are reassured the paper they own is worth what they paid of it,” he said. “No one is going to agree with every single thing in this plan. There is no plan that everybody is going to agree with in its entirety but this plan meets those broad tests.”