The Hill News

Two top budget negotiators made clear on Sunday just how high the hurdles when all sides sit down early next month to try to hammer out a long-term deficit deal.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Gang of Six negotiations, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, (D-Md.), newly named to the Biden budget talks by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), disagreed starkly on whether the debt ceiling increase needs to be tied to a budget deal.

Coburn made plain that he will not accept an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit in the coming weeks without agreement on a debt reduction package.

“What do I need? I need absolute certainty that we've made the critical changes that are necessary to put this country back where it needs to go. And unless we do that, there is no way I support it,” he said.

“We are going to have a debt crisis either this or soon thereafter if we don't come together, so its time to come together,” he said.

Van Hollen, ranking member of the Budget Committee, said President Obama has laid out a “two-track” process whereby a clean debt ceiling bill is passed, and a deficit package is developed separately.

Coburn said he supports the budget proposed by House Budget Commiteee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) which turns Medicare into a type of voucher system, saying that consumer choice is needed to drive prices down.

Van Hollen, rejected that entirely, noting the Congressional Budget Office has found that seniors will be paying at least $6,000 more per year in health insurance costs after 2022 if the Ryan plan goes into effect.

On taxes, Van Hollen said that tax reform that lowers the rates must raise revenue and made a pitch for end the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.

Coburn continued to strike a more nuanced view, consistent with his participation in the Gang of Six talks that seek to put the recommendations of the president's fiscal commission into law.

Coburn said that most of the fiscal commission's recommedations are “revenue neutral” but raise revenue by stimulating growth.

He reiterated his argument, most recently expressed in the weekly Republican radio address, that all sides need to come together this year on a debt plan.

He said he believes the Gang of Six is coming close to an agreement.

“There's a good chance we can come up with something that people can swallow,” he said. The left isn't going to like it, the right isn't going to like.”

There are three Republicans on the Gang of Six: Sens. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Mike Crapo (Idaho); and three Democrats: Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), and Mark Warner (Va.).