After suffering a 'big blow,' Conrad says prospects have dimmed for the Gang of Six

It may have been the "best prospect" of bridging the political aisle to deal with the nation's fiscal crisis, but the so-called Gang of Six appears to have suffered a fatal blow in its work to develop a comprehensive deficit reduction roadmap that a divided Congress could stand behind.

The bipartisan group of senators, including Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., has met since late last year, hashing out a strategy for reaching their goal: a $4 trillion deficit cut over the next decade.

Conrad said the group had nearly reached agreement on a strategy and were negotiating the final few details at the beginning of the week. But their effort seemingly derailed Tuesday when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., announced that he was on "sabbatical" after the group reached an "impasse" over Medicare cuts.

"We were really only two or three issues away from concluding our work in the Group of Six when he decided to take a break," he said.

The remaining senators -- Republicans Saxby Chambliss and Mike Crapo and Democrats Conrad, Dick Durbin and Mark Warner -- plan to continue their deficit reduction talks.

Conrad said their Wednesday meeting went "very well" and that their efforts are "critically important for the country." Still, he said Coburn's surprise departure has dimmed hopes that the group will be able to finish its work.

"I'm not terribly optimistic that it's going to happen," he said. "When you've had an effort underway for this long with six people, and one abruptly leaves when you're right at the finish line, there's no sugarcoating it: that's a big blow."

Waiting for Biden

Conrad announced in January that he won't seek re-election in 2012, saying at the time he'd rather spend his remaining time in the office he's held since 1986 on dealing with the $14.3 trillion national debt rather than launching another campaign.

He's worked on several "tracks" in pursuit of finding a comprehensive solution to the fiscal crisis, including his time on last year's presidential commission for deficit reduction that crafted a 10-year plan calling for a $4 trillion deficit cut.

The proposal didn't get enough support to guarantee a congressional vote, so Conrad and five Senate colleagues began working as the Gang of Six to develop a $4 trillion deficit reduction package.

He told the Herald earlier this month that the group had made "enormous progress" and said he was convinced it was the nation's "best prospect for a bipartisan agreement" on a plan to avoid financial catastrophe.

But Conrad said he wasn't taking any chances that Congress would address the issue this year. Besides his work with the presidential commission and the Gang of Six, Conrad was developing two other budget proposals -- a possible plan closely mirroring the commission proposal and a more "aggressive" plan he said would achieve $5.6 trillion in deficit cuts over 10 years.

The Senate Budget Committee chairman had planned on scheduling a markup of his budget resolution as an alternative to the Republican budget passed by the House last month.

But after talking with colleagues in recent days, Conrad said he's decided to put that plan on hold and wait to see the results of ongoing bipartisan deficit talks being led by Vice President Joe Biden.

"If they come back with a conclusion, obviously that would be part of a budget resolution," he said. "They may well need a budget resolution to implement the recommendations that they make."

Conrad said that's how bipartisan agreements were enacted in 1990 and 1997, and said this method would allow for the reconciliation process to address final details in a way that can only be done with a budget resolution.

"It seems like it would be a waste of time at this point to move forward with a budget markup," he said.

'Less optimistic'

Waiting for the outcome of Biden's group is a political risk, Conrad said, because it delays the Senate budget process until later this summer -- close to the Aug. 2 final deadline for Congress to raise the debt ceiling and avoid putting the country at risk of default.

But he said waiting until the last minute also could help prompt more senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle to vote for a comprehensive plan to deal with the growing debt and deficit.

"It appears to me almost the only way that you can get people to make these very tough decisions is to have a deadline hanging over them," he said. "It's human nature I guess. I wish it weren't because it's just not the way I like to do things, but I can't change it."

For now, Conrad said all eyes are on Biden's deficit talks that have earned the attention of prominent lawmakers, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

But that wasn't the case just last Saturday when Conrad delivered the keynote address at UND's spring commencement ceremony. He told graduating students that the Gang of Six had made "tremendous progress, and I am now hopeful that soon we will be able to announce an agreement."

Conrad said the group had made tentative agreements on a wide variety of contentious issues and was negotiating on the last few details. But in recent days, Coburn had demanded an additional $130 billion in Medicare cuts on top of the $400 billion that the Gang of Six had already agreed to include.

Conrad said the senators discussed two options to reach Coburn's Medicare cuts, but the Oklahoma senator announced Tuesday that he was taking an indefinite break from their negotiations. Coburn now plans to advance a $9 trillion deficit reduction proposal -- a target far beyond the other plans now being discussed in Congress.

While Conrad said he believes Congress will enact some kind of deficit reduction roadmap, he said the real question is if it will be enough to seriously address the nation's fiscal crisis.

"Something is going to get passed this year," he said. "But I am less optimistic that it is going to be a proposal of the scale and dimension that I believe is essential."