WASHINGTON — Colorado’s House Republicans say a key way of achieving $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction is to develop oil and gas in Alaska.
Colorado’s Democrats are fiercely trying to protect Medicare so doctors don’t weather another round of reimbursement cuts.
Rep. Doug Lamborn doesn’t want to cut defense spending.
Rep. Mike Coffman wants to cut defense spending.
Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet believe the supercommittee should be more ambitious, tackle tax reform and find savings bigger than the original goal.
And this is just one state delegation.
As the group charged with finding deficit reductions amid a $3.4 trillion federal budget and $14.3 trillion in debt wallow in politics here, Colorado’s nine-member delegation has certainly chimed in on what it sees as solutions.
“My perspective is that Republicans, Democrats and independents want a comprehensive plan; they want it to be material,” said Bennet. “I wish these guys (supercommittee members) could see my townhalls and what people are saying.”
Udall and Bennet joined more than 30 other senators, Democrat and Republican, in mid-September urging the supercommittee to try to achieve $4 trillion in reduction.
The committee has until Thanksgiving to come up with a plan. If it does, a vote would come before Christmas on those ideas.
Most in Colorado’s delegation are doubtful of the committee’s productiveness. It is meeting mostly behind closed doors, and in the small handful of public appearances, the same partisan politics are evident.
“I go from moments of pessimism to moments of optimism,” said Republican Rep. Cory Gardner. “The moments of optimism come from the fact that if they don’t do it, it’s going to be so ugly.”
Failure to reach accord means that automatic cuts — $600 billion to defense and $600 billion to domestic spending — take hold in January 2013.
“I would respectfully remind my colleagues that if we don’t come up with a plan, . . . then we will have a meatcleaver instead of a scalpel,” Udall said. “So far, we’ve shown ourselves incapable of making these decisions. I look forward to their proposal.”
Allison Sherry: 202-662-8907 or asherry@denverpost.com
