White House-Led Budget Negotiations Resume

The bipartisan budget negotiations led by Vice President Biden resumed this week with participants from both parties citing that progress has been made.  Both parties have expressed their desire to resolve the negotiations prior to the July 4 recess. The group is working on a plan to reduce the deficit in order to win support in Congress to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion by August 2.  Republicans have been very vocal in insisting that at least $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years would be needed for the debt ceiling to be raised.  It is believed that the group has thus far talked primarily about discretionary spending and agreed to about $1 trillion in deficit reduction. At this point there are no indications that revenue raisers would be included in the deficit reduction deal primarily because of the Republican opposition to raising taxes.  The high unemployment rate and continued poor economic data have given new life to possible inclusion of revenue raising policies as part of the package.  This leaves open the possibility for an agreement to boost the economy in a final deal.  For more information, please contact Sean O’Neill at (202) 547-8892 or oneills@agc.org.