ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel in Washington.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand in California.
Some good news and some bad news today out of the Congressional Budget Office. The good news: this year's deficit is a bit lower than last year's. The bad news: it's still more than one and a third trillion dollars. President Obama and Congress agree that something should be done, but a bipartisan commission that would have presumably done something got shot down in the Senate today. And President's Obama's proposal to freeze discretionary spending for three years is receiving a lukewarm response.
NPR's David Welna reports.
DAVID WELNA: Like a prophet crying out in the wilderness, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad has been admonishing his colleagues for months to empower a commission to make the difficult choices Congress can't seem to make. Conrad's aim is to bring greater balance to the budget both by cutting spending and by raising taxes.
Senator KENT CONRAD (Democrat, North Dakota): Anybody who says we don't have to do anything, we can just keep on doing what we're doing, has got their head in the sand. Social Security and Medicare are both cash negative today. They are both headed for insolvency. Those who say we don't have to do anything, they are guaranteeing a disaster.
WELNA: The 18 member commission Conrad has proposed would be made up almost entirely of sitting lawmakers whose members would be appointed by congressional leaders of both parties and the president. Their recommendations would be voted on by Congress without any amendments and would only pass with 60 percent of the votes in each chamber. Judd Gregg who's the top Republican on the budget panel joined Conrad in proposing the commission.
Senator JUDD GREGG (Republican, New Hampshire): Regular order doesn't work around here. So unless you have fast track approval, unless you have an up or down vote, unless you have no amendments and unless you have balanced commission of a supermajority to report, you don't get bipartisanship, you don't get fairness and you don't get action.
WELNA: But Max Baucus, who chairs the Tax Writing Finance Committee, vehemently opposed the deficit commission. He said lawmakers were elected to make precisely the kind of hard choices needed to cut deficits.
Senator MAX BAUCUS (Democrat, Montana): Regular order does work here: 1990, 1993, 1997, Congress passed reconciliation budget resolutions that worked. And I believe, frankly, that we have it within ourselves as senators can do the same again.
WELNA: Fifty-three Senators including 13 Republicans voted for the commission, but that was short the 60 votes needed. As a fallback, President Obama is expected to name such a commission, but Congress would not be bound to vote on its recommendations. In another move to cut deficits, President Obama is expected to announce in his State of the Union address tomorrow a three-year freeze in spending that would exclude defense and entitlement expenditures. The president's proposal got a cool reception today from Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Senator HARRY REID (Democrat, Nevada; Senate Majority Leader): We'll have to look and see what the president is talking about cutting. We have to make sure that we have money for education. We have to make sure we have money to take care of our civil society.
WELNA: Republicans generally hailed the proposed spending freeze as a step in the right direction. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did so with a caveat.
Senator MITCH MCCONNELL (Republican, Kentucky; Senate Minority Leader): I think any indication the administration is trying to reduce to spending is a good thing, but we've been on quite a binge over the last 12 months and it's going to take a lot more than just this kind of modest freeze to get us back on the right track.
WELNA: McConnell and other Republicans say one way to rein in spending is not to raise the ceiling on the national debt by $1.9 trillion as the White House has requested. They'd rather do it in small increments forcing Democrats to take a series of tough votes this election year.
David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.