Efforts by the bipartisan “Gang of Six” in the Senate to forge a comprehensive budget deal have received vigorous support from members of The Concord Coalition’s Board of Directors who have previously served in Congress.
“The cooperative approach taken by the senators’ group is the most promising route to enactment of legislation curbing the economically destructive and generationally inequitable explosion of debt that awaits if we don’t change course,” the Concord board members said in a statement last week.
The work of the Gang of Six efforts is important, the statement said, because it focuses on the need to develop sustainable fiscal policies, recognizes that there must be a comprehensive solution, and is a unique exercise in bipartisanship.
Noting “resistance from partisan advocates and only tepid support from party leaders” for the Gang of Six, the former members of Congress cautioned that a bipartisan Senate plan would “just be the start of tough negotiations” that would involve the House, the Obama administration and the American public.
But the statement pointed out: “If the Senate group is able to agree on a plan, it will serve as a beacon for those who wish to support meaningful bipartisan solutions.”
The statement was signed by former senators Warren B. Rudman, Bob Kerrey, Evan Bayh III, Judd Gregg, Sam Nunn and Chuck Robb, and former representatives J. Alex McMillan , Timothy J. Penny, Charlie Stenholm and John Tanner.
External links:
President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
