Durbin still hopeful on deficit package

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said he has hopes that a bipartisan panel in Washington can come up with a comprehensive deficit reduction package, but said the so-called supercommittee was given “an almost impossible assignment” on a short time frame.

Durbin, the state’s senior senator and the second-ranking Democrat in the chamber, said that while the panel of House and Senate members was given until Nov. 23 to submit a deficit-cutting proposal, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said it needs a plan by Nov. 1 to ensure the proposal is legitimate.

“Now,” Durbin said, “they have days to come up with an agreement” or risk at least $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts split between domestic and defense programs. Durbin made his comments as a guest on the Tribune’s “Chicago Live” show at the Chicago Theater.

As of now, Durbin said, House and Senate Republicans on the panel are rejecting tax increases as part of the package and some are resisting cuts in defense. He said that would result in heavy cuts in domestic programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, college student loans and health research.

“I’m still pulling for ‘em. I hope at the end they come together,” Durbin said of the supercommittee. Still, he noted that 44 senators, equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, have signed onto the president’s original deficit commission plan, which includes new revenues and cuts in entitlement programs.

“I think the (deficit reduction) number shouldn’t be $2 (trillion) or $2.5 (trillion). It should be $4 (trillion) or more,” Durbin said. “And I think if we do (that), it would be such a solid message that we’re serious about the deficit, that we’re going to do it in a timely way so we deal with the recession first in 2012, and we do it on a bipartisan basis. I think people would gasp and say, ‘You mean they can finally agree on something?’”