WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A Republican U.S. senator said Saturday GOP members on the deficit-reduction supercommittee are making huge compromises to reach a deal, but Democrats are not.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said Republican members of the supercommittee were committed to cutting spending and tax reform, The Hill reported.
"We've proposed cutting spending by $750 billion over 10 years," Toomey said in the GOP weekly address. "Now, let me be clear. We've identified several trillion dollars in sensible, responsible spending reductions that would actually resolve our fiscal crisis. But in the face of intense Democratic opposition, we've scaled back our proposal to just $750 billion -- less than 2 percent of what our government is projected to spend over the next 10 years."
Toomey said there is a huge gap between parties on the supercommittee, which must submit a proposal to the Congressional Budget Office by midnight Monday to be looked over.
Related
GOP members are dedicated to reducing the debt that they conceded to tax reform as a way of generating revenue, Toomey said.
"We Republicans are so committed to this job-creating tax reform and reaching an agreement with our Democratic colleagues that we've offered to use this tax reform as a way to generate revenue for deficit reduction," Toomey said.
Democrats rejected the latest deficit-reduction proposal from Republicans. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., a member of the supercommittee, said the latest GOP proposal contains $600 billion in program cuts and "only $3 billion in revenue."
"Do we look stupid?" he told The Hill. "I mean, I don't know, maybe we do. I certainly am not stupid."
