The U.S. Senate opposed a bipartisan proposal Tuesday that would have established a “deficit commission” to devise ways to reduce the national deficit and require Congress to give them an up-or-down vote. Montana’s Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon came down on opposite sides of the amendment.
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-budget-senate27-2010jan27,0,6372059.story" title="From the Los Angeles Times“>From the Los Angeles Times: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) opposed the amendment, saying it would reduce senators to bureaucrats by stripping them of responsibility to decide how to reduce the deficit.
“Bureaucrats do not enact great legislation — senators do,” Baucus said. “Let us not shirk our responsibility.”
From Tester’s office: “For a decade, both parties have swept America’s debt problem under the carpet. And like most Montanans, I’m fed up with the mess.
The only way to get our fiscal house in order is to put politics aside and work together to create good-paying jobs, making Wall Street work for Main Street.
That’s why I crossed party lines to vote against the bailouts of Wall Street and the U.S. auto industry. And that’s why I voted today to create a bipartisan panel to recommend spending cuts.”
The amendment to create the 18-member commission was sponsored Senators Judd Gregg, R-N.H. and Kent Conrad, D-N.D. It failed on a 53-42 vote – seven short of the 60 votes needed