Joe Biden

Biden's Office Complains After Reporter Ambush

Susan Crabtree | October 25, 2011, 9:47AM

Vice President Joe Biden

Vice President Joe Biden's office is none too pleased with a tricky reporter ambush of him that got ugly and went viral last week.

Biden, never one to shy away from reporters even after a career of headline-making gaffes and wisecracks, is drawing the line. Biden's office has complained to the Senate press gallery about a confrontation he had with a conservative reporter, The Hill reports.

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Joe Biden

Biden Takes Senate Republicans To School On Tiny Millionaire's Surtax (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | October 20, 2011, 10:19AM

V.P. Joe Biden Speaks to the Press on Capitol Hill

One reason you can expect unanimous Republican opposition to Senate Democrats' latest jobs bill Friday is because it includes a tax -- a 0.5 percent surtax on income above $1 million starting in January 2013.

That would raise enough money over the next 10 years to cover the $35 billion cost of hiring and retaining about 400,000 teachers and emergency responders next year -- but for Republicans, it's not worth it.

"This is the worst possible way to promote economic growth and job creation," warned Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) -- the Senate Minority Whip, and member of the joint deficit Super Committee.

Enter Vice President Joe Biden, who at a Capitol Hill rally on Wednesday provided a lesson on just how modest the tax is.

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Harry Reid

Reid To GOP On Jobs: POTUS Bus Tour Seems To Be Working

Susan Crabtree | October 19, 2011, 1:04PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is reminding Republicans attacking President Obama for traveling around the country promoting his jobs plan that the bus tour seems to be working -- polls show most Americans support the plan to get Americans back to work.

Ahead of Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Capitol Hill later Wednesday afternoon, Reid touted poll number after poll number showing strong bipartisan support for the entire jobs package -- and overwhelming support for the break-out component introduced in the Senate Monday aimed at putting 400,000 teachers, police officers and first-responders back to work.

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Occupy Wall Street

Biden Attacks Big Banks, Compares Rise Of Occupy Wall Street To Rise Of Tea Party

Brian Beutler | October 6, 2011, 11:51AM

Vice President Joe Biden

Vice President Joe Biden empathized with the Occupy Wall Street movement Thursday, and criticized big banks in harsher terms than most people in the Obama administration are typically comfortable with.

At The Atlantic's Ideas Forum, Biden said he understands what underlies the anti-Wall Street movement, and compared it to the anger driving the Tea Party.

"What is the core of that protest, and why is it increasing in terms of the people it's attracting -- the core is the bargain has been breeched with the American people," Biden said. "The core is the American people do not think the system is fair or on the level..... That is the core of what you're seeing on Wall Street. And that's what started, by the way -- there's a lot in common with the Tea Party. The Tea Party started why? TARP. They thought it was unfair -- we were bailing out the big guy."

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Barack Obama

Obama Has No Regrets For Acknowledging Economic Woes

Susan Crabtree | October 4, 2011, 2:12PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama is standing by his concession Monday in an interview with ABC News that Americans aren't better off than they were four years ago before the near collapse of the financial system and a deep economic recession -- both of which occurred at the tail end of President George W. Bush's term.

At a fundraiser in Dallas, Obama returned to the point he made in the interview, that Americans are still suffering through hard economic times.

"Of course they're still hurting," he said. "Every night I get letters and emails from families who are struggling."

He listed among his successes the auto bailout and Wall Street reform, noting Republican opposition to both.

The President doesn't regret acknowledging the truth, namely, that the economy is still flagging and is unlikely to quickly rebound any time soon, White House spokesman Jay Carney also told reporters Tuesday while traveling to Texas on Air Force One.

"It would be wrong to somehow suggest that the hole created by that recession was not very deep ... or that somehow we'll emerge from it overnight," Carney said.

But Carney also noted that "four years ago was 2007 -- prior to the point where the policies of the previous administration plunged us into the greatest recession since the Great Depression."

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Barack Obama

Obama's Plan Is The Opposite Of Paul Ryan's Plan -- For Good Reason

Brian Beutler | September 20, 2011, 6:05AM

President Obama's first term has been marked by a tendency to take the liberal policy consensus on any issue, move five clicks to the right, and begin negotiations having already conceded quite a bit to conservatives.

His new push to pass a $447 billion jobs plan, and reduce out year deficits in large measure by raising taxes on the rich marks a significant departure from the status quo ante. And it sets Obama up for a risky, but important and necessary fight with Republicans over the country's future.

Put it all together and his plan would juice the economy in the near-term, and pursue a vision for the country that's just about the opposite of the GOP's. In effect, it serves as a rebuke to House Republicans -- and particularly House Speaker John Boehner -- who walked away from an equally far-reaching plan that would have been much friendlier to conservative interests.

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Joe Biden

White House Says It's Serious About Trimming Government Fat

Susan Crabtree | September 14, 2011, 12:00PM

V.P. Joe Biden

As President Obama asks for more money from taxpayers for his jobs plan, he's trying to show just how serious he is about cutting a little fat out of the administration's own budgetary diet.

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Jobs

Cantor Nixes President Obama's Infrastructure Bank Idea

Brian Beutler | September 8, 2011, 2:16PM

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is striking a gentler tone ahead of President Obama's Thursday jobs speech, and highlighting the areas he says Republicans can work with the administration to grow the economy -- unemployment insurance, payroll taxes, and infrastructure. But the devil is in the details, and there are still significant differences between the parties' approaches.

"I'm wary of the suggestion of an infrastructure bank," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) told reporters at a roundtable lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "I am one who agrees with the notion that an infrastructure bank is almost like creating a Fanny and Freddie for roads and bridges."

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China

Conservatives Spin Biden's Comments On China's One Child Policy

Thomas Lane | August 24, 2011, 12:26PM

Vice President Joe Biden is in a fix: he criticized China's one-child policy, but then found himself in trouble for *not* criticizing it.

The trouble began on Sunday, when Biden was delivering a speech at a Chinese university. Discussing a possibly looming entitlements crisis, he told the crowd: "You have no safety net. Your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family. The result being that you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable."

Right now, Biden's office is engaged in stating the obvious: that this was a criticism of the policy. Despite the polite diplomatic throat-clearing that preceded his attack, he was still, as his spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff states, "point[ing] out, in China, that the policy is, as a practical matter, unsustainable."

However, conservative critics seized on quite a different part of the remarks: they lathed onto the word, "second-guessing."

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Super Committee

Biden: Super Committee Could Easily Gridlock

Brian Beutler | August 23, 2011, 10:32AM

V.P. Joe Biden

The man who led the first in a series of failed Congressional debt limit negotiations says it's still quite likely that the new joint Super Committee, tasked with reducing the deficit by another $1.5 trillion over 10 years, will gridlock, triggering unpalatable penalties.

The new 12-member panel has "a shot of getting a deal that would be viewed by Wall Street, be viewed by everyone, be viewed by the international community as a significant alteration of a trajectory of long-term debt.... We still may end up with the trigger being pulled," Vice President Joe Biden told reporters traveling aboard Air Force Two in Asia. Reaching a deal will be "very difficult," he added.

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China

Chinese Minders Forcefully Shove American Reporters During Remarks By Joe Biden

Thomas Lane | August 18, 2011, 10:03AM

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice President Biden

Chinese press minders twice broke into altercations Thursday with American reporters covering Vice-President Joe Biden's visit to China.

The trouble began when the press were allowed to watch the start of a meeting between Biden and the Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping. According to the LA Times, an agreement had been reached that the two Vice Presidents would deliver brief opening remarks, and then the press would leave so the meeting could go on in private.

Biden's remarks, however, seemed to go on a little long for the taste of the Chinese organizers. According to the Financial Times, as he launched into some anodyne remarks on the economy, Chinese officials began to whisper, "Why is he talking for so long?"

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Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi Names Clyburn, Van Hollen, Becerra To Deficit Super Committee

Brian Beutler | August 11, 2011, 1:04PM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

The roster's now complete. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has named her picks to the deficit Super Committee, and they're a familiar bunch: Reps Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

Each of the three has served at her behest on different fiscal working groups in the recent past. All are loyal members, current or former, of her leadership team, all with fairly liberal voting records.

But here are a few caveats...

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Gabrielle Giffords

Post-Giffords 'New Tone' Already Long Gone

Benjy Sarlin | August 2, 2011, 10:39AM

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), May 17, 2011.

After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was nearly killed in a January shooting spree, talk of a "new tone" was all over Congress as lawmakers from both parties hoped the traumatic event would calm America's increasingly violent rhetoric. Instead, Giffords returned on Monday to find things as bad as ever.

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Joe Biden

Report: Biden Told Dems That Tea Partiers 'Have Acted Like Terrorists' In Debt Ceiling Debate

Ryan J. Reilly | August 1, 2011, 5:33PM

Vice President Joe Biden told the House Democrats he met with today that Tea Party Republicans had "acted like terrorists" in the debt ceiling debate, Politico reported.

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Nancy Pelosi

Biden Meets With Furious House Democrats

Brian Beutler | August 1, 2011, 3:15PM

V.P. Joe Biden

House Democrats convened Monday afternoon in an underground conference room in the Capitol Visitor's Center to hear Vice President Joe Biden explain the debt limit deal he helped broker with Congressional Republicans, and to vent to reporters in the strongest possible terms about the deal many of them are being asked to consider supporting.

"They expressed all their frustrations," Biden told reporters after the meeting. "I feel confident that this will pass."

He must've gotten an earful. The meeting, scheduled to last an hour, dragged on for over two. During that stretch, a steady trickle of Dems, entering and exiting, stopped to complain about the legislation, and the extent to which they'd been closed out of the process of crafting it.

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Debt

Going Populist? Dems Put GOP On Spot Over Tax Benefits For The Super-Rich

Brian Beutler | July 1, 2011, 6:00AM

Several weeks after Republicans and Democrats began high-level negotiations to slash federal spending by trillions of dollars -- the GOP's price for raising the national borrowing limit, and avoiding a catastrophic debt default -- Democrats finally peeped up. New tax revenues, of some kind, of some amount, would have to be part of the deal.

The group, led by Vice President Joe Biden, had already identified nearly $2 trillion in cuts to discretionary and mandatory spending programs -- nearly enough to raise the debt limit through the end of 2012 and take a contentious issue off the table this election season.

That's when Democrats said, "your turn to give!" and put $400 billion in tax cuts on the table. Republicans balked. No tax hikes at all. Some Republicans have left the door open to closing certain indefensible loopholes. But party leaders have tried, for all intents and purposes, to take the tax code off the table. Cuts only.

The Democrats' response, from the rank and file up to President Obama, has been a political twofer. If Republicans are taking all taxes off the table, then they're playing reverse Robin Hood -- demanding trillions in cuts to social programs while refusing to budge on preferences to unfathomably wealthy special interests. It's class war, but in tactical sense. If they can make the GOP feel so uncomfortable that they agree to end special tax favors for the ultra-wealthy -- even if those favors don't ultimately cost that much money -- then maybe they can break the anti-tax firewall and encroach on $400 billion.

Here's what they're focusing on.

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Barack Obama

Reid: Actually Obama Will Meet With Senators On Debt Limit Wednesday

Brian Beutler | June 30, 2011, 1:29PM

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.

Turns out President Obama will come to the Capitol to talk debt ceiling...just not today.

At a Thursday Senate press conference, scheduled minutes before it began, Democratic leaders called out their GOP counterparts, who invited Obama to the Hill without notice in order to swipe at him later for declining. Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that Obama will come, along with the Vice President Joe Biden, to visit Senators on Wednesday.

"Next week, on Tuesday, we're going to have Sen. [Kent] Conrad who's worked really hard with the people on the Budget Committee to come up with a way forward on the budget," Reid said.

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Debt

Top Dems Provide Fresh Detail On High-Income Tax Proposal That Led GOP To Abandon Debt Talks

Brian Beutler | June 24, 2011, 12:58PM

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Updated at 1:55 p.m.

Two of the top Democrats in Congress are calling out their Republican counterparts for abandoning high-stakes debt talks, and have provided new details about the tax proposals that sent the GOP packing.

"To paraphrase speaker Boehner, this was not an adult moment," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on a conference call with reporters. "There needs to be revenues in any deal."

Schumer was not a member of the bipartisan debt discussion group led by Vice President Joe Biden. But Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) was, and on the call he explained the tax proposals Democrats tried to put on the table that the GOP rejected.

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Debt Ceiling

Cantor Gave Boehner No Heads Up On Ditching Debt Talks

Benjy Sarlin | June 24, 2011, 10:06AM

Eric Cantor (R-VA) and John Boehner (R-OH)

Murmurs that Eric Cantor may be undercutting Speaker John Boehner with his decision to drop out of debt ceiling negotiations are getting louder with the news that Cantor barely tipped his boss off on his plans. Boehner received the news only right before the press did, per the AP, leaving him to face reporters at his weekly press conference having barely processed the gamechanging move.

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Debt ceiling

Cantor Drops Out Of Deficit Talks With Biden, Kicks Upstairs To Boehner and Obama

Benjy Sarlin | June 23, 2011, 10:51AM

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Bipartisan negotiations over a deal to raise the debt limit entered a new chapter Thursday as the Republicans' top negotiator, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, pulled out of talks.

Cantor told the Wall Street Journal that negotiations hadn't necessarily broken down, but needed help from President Obama and Speaker Boehner to continue. An aide familiar with the talks told TPM that Cantor and Biden had made significant progress towards a deal but that the Majority Leader felt that certain snags may be beyond their negotiating authority.

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Eric Cantor

Cantor: Debt Limit Is A One-Shot Deal

Brian Beutler | June 21, 2011, 1:40PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) says raising the debt limit should be a one-time deal this Congress, exposing a rift between House and Senate GOP leadership, and putting the squeeze on Democrats to agree to vast, unpopular spending cuts within the next two weeks.

"I don't see how multiple votes on a debt ceiling increase can help get us to where we want to go," Cantor told reporters at his weekly Capitol briefing. "It is my preference that we do this thing one time."

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Jobs

Under New Pressure From Mayors On Spending, Biden To Rev Up Deficit-Reduction Talks

Susan Crabtree | June 21, 2011, 5:45AM

V.P. Joe Biden

With U.S. mayors exerting new pressure on the White House and Congress to spend more money on infrastructure and worker-training programs to create more jobs, Vice President Joe Biden will huddle with a bipartisan group of lawmakers again this week in an attempt to complete the outline of a deficit-reduction deal by early July.

Democrats are hoping to gain more traction this week on their attempt to raise revenues after Republican senators voted last week to end an ethanol tax break while House Republicans remain committed to exacting roughly $4 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. The group has a hard deadline of Aug. 2 to raise the debt ceiling and prevent the U.S. from defaulting, which would have a cataclysmic impact on the already fragile economy, the White House and economists have warned.

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Debt Ceiling

Cantor: Despite What I Said Before, Default Would Be BFD

Brian Beutler | June 13, 2011, 2:26PM

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) acknowledged Monday that if Congress doesn't act quickly to raise the debt limit, markets will react poorly.

His admission is somewhat at odds with a growing line of argument from senior Republicans that a brief default by the U.S. on its payment obligations won't trigger significant economic consequences. Nonetheless, he continues to insist that Republicans will not raise the national debt limit without also cutting trillions of dollars in spending over the next decade -- and he credited Vice President Joe Biden for leading fruitful negotiations over just how to do that.

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Deficit

Republicans: Sending Biden To Negotiate Economy = 'Phoning It In'

Evan McMorris-Santoro | June 8, 2011, 1:28PM

Republican candidate for Senate Ron Johnson (WI).

President Obama has dispatched Vice President Biden, the number two man in the government and nominally the head of the U.S. Senate, to handle negotiations with the GOP over deficit reduction.

Today, Republicans said that shows Obama doesn't really care much about getting the economy back on track.

"As a business person, the people I know running businesses, if their business was in jeopardy of going out of business, they'd be rolling up their sleeves, they'd be working 16, 17, 18 hours a day to solve a problem," Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said. "And yet our president is totally disengaged. He sent his Vice President to negotiate what, maybe once a week? Twice a week?"

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Medicare

Senate Dems Call On GOP To Abandon Ryan Medicare Plan

Susan Crabtree | June 6, 2011, 1:28PM

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

With Republicans on the ropes when it comes to defending their proposal to privatize Medicare, a group of Senate Democrats is hoping to deliver a body blow to GOP plans to push for the proposal in talks about reducing the nation's spiraling debt.

Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) on Monday called for Republicans to take Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) plan for Medicare off the table in ongoing bipartisan deficit-reduction talks.

"We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to pay down the debt but not at the expense of our seniors' healthcare," Brown told reporters on a conference call. "Ending Medicare as we know it should not be part of our debt-reduction negotiations."

Ryan's Medicare proposal has sparked a backlash with the public and has been roundly panned in national polls. Some Republicans are already distancing themselves from the plan, but GOP leaders and most of the party's presidential contenders remaining strongly committed to it.

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Debt Ceiling

First Debt Limit Vote Today As GOP Looks To Divide Dems

Benjy Sarlin | May 31, 2011, 10:20AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and other members of the GOP leadership

Congress will holds its first vote on the debt ceiling on Tuesday, with the GOP House majority bringing up a "clean" bill that would raise the limit on the government's borrowing ability with no strings attached, i.e., no spending cuts. That's exactly what most Democrats have been calling for, so why would Republicans give them a chance to vote on it? That's where this gets tricky.

The vote is intended to expose fault lines within the Democratic caucus, with Republicans counting on sizable number of Democrats to side with them and bolster their case that Democrats need to agree to deep spending cuts as a condition to raising the debt limit.

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Medicare

McConnell: I Won't Agree To Raise The Debt Limit Without Medicare Cuts

Brian Beutler | May 27, 2011, 12:17PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says substantial Medicare cuts must be part of a spending and deficit cut package to get his support to raise the debt limit.

In a Capitol briefing with reporters Friday, McConnell declared affirmatively that unspecified Medicare cuts are on the table in bipartisan debt limit negotiations, led by Vice President Joe Biden, and he expects they'll be part of the final deal. But in response to a question from TPM, he went further than he has in the past in laying down a marker on that issue. Medicare cuts must be part of that deal to get his support, he says -- even if negotiators manage to find trillions of dollars in savings elsewhere, even if his other priorities are met.

"To get my vote, for me, it's going to take short term [cuts, via spending caps]... Both medium and long-term, entitlements.," McConnell said. "Medicare will be part of the solution."

To clarify, I asked "[I]f [the Biden group] comes up with big cuts, trillions of dollars worth of cuts, but without substantially addressing Medicare, it won't get your vote?"

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Medicare

Reid Dismisses GOP Attacks On Dem Medicare Cuts: You Guys Want To End Medicare

Brian Beutler | May 25, 2011, 2:57PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Democrats are riding high on their victory in Tuesday's special election in NY-26 -- a Republican district that turned blue largely because the GOP has now aligned itself with a plan to phase out Medicare and replace it with subsidized private insurance. And Democrats won't let voters forget it.

In an implicit admission that they're now heavily vulnerable on this issue, Republicans -- particularly Senate Republicans -- are threatening to revisit their attack on Democrats for cutting Medicare as part of the health care law that passed last year. Underlying that threat is another one: if Democrats and Republicans reach a deal on the debt limit that involves further Medicare cuts then it's likely that for every Republican who supports privatizing Medicare, there will be a Democrat who voted at least once to cut Medicare.

In a Capitol press conference Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took on the major differences between cutting and basically eliminating.

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Medicare

Will Dems Give Up Their Political Advantage On Medicare In Debt Limit Fight?

Brian Beutler | May 24, 2011, 1:48PM

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Is it possible that Democrats will squander the political advantage on Medicare that they just regained over Republicans? It could happen.

At his weekly Capitol briefing with reporters Tuesday, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) confirmed what aides in both parties have been telling reporters: Cuts to Medicare will be on the table in deficit and debt limit negotiations, led by Vice President Joe Biden.

After arguing that Democrats made significant headway toward extending Medicare's solvency with the health care law, Hoyer said, "Do I believe that there are other things we can do related to Medicare? The answer is I do. I'm not going to get into articulating each one, but my expectation is they will be under discussion by the Biden group."

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Health Care

GOP Sens Threaten To Block Key Element Of Health Care Law -- And They Can

Brian Beutler | May 24, 2011, 9:11AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Senate Republicans are preparing to foreclose on the Democrats' single best hope for addressing the country's structural deficit without shifting a huge cost burden on to seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries. It's a testament to the deep division between the parties on the key driver of future U.S. debt -- which might not matter if debt wasn't the high-stakes issue du jour in Washington.

Broadly speaking, there are two competing schools of thought about how best to reduce federal Medicare spending. One version works much like the House GOP budget's Medicare privatization plan -- it involves capping overall Medicare spending, and outsourcing the financing of seniors' health care to private insurers. This shifts a significant cost on to seniors themselves, but Republicans like the idea for two reasons: (1) It reduces federal spending by fiat; and (2) It rations health care via the private sector -- based on what services seniors think they'll need, and what services insurers will agree to pay for.

The Obama administration's alternative is a gentle twist on government rationing. It preserves Medicare as a single-payer system but shaves off waste-creating incentives so that over time the provision of care to beneficiaries is more affordable, more efficient, more research-based than it is now without explicitly "rationing" by declining more services over time. Or at least that's the goal.

And that's where the Independent Payment Advisory Board comes in. It's the most promising of the many new cost-cutting initiatives created by President Obama's health care law. IPAB will be tasked with implementing new ways to reduce Medicare spending, and, though its powers are limited in several key ways -- for instance, it's explicitly forbidden to "ration" health care -- its recommendations take effect almost automatically.

There's just one problem: Each of the board's 15 members has to be confirmed by the Senate. That means filibusters and 60 vote requirements stand in the way of staffing a panel that Republicans decry as a government rationing board. And months ahead of the nominations, they're telling Obama "good luck with that!"

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Gang of Six

Source: Coburn Ditching Gang Of Six Over Plan To Cut Medicare

Brian Beutler | May 17, 2011, 5:30PM

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)

Not since David Lee Roth left Van Halen has a defection augured so poorly for team success. On Tuesday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) told reporters he was stepping away from the Gang of Six negotiations -- a bipartisan working group of senators putting together a plan to reduce the deficit and debt -- over their inability to agree on entitlement spending cuts.

After a bit of confusion over Coburn's status in these talks, his spokesman John Hart confirmed the departure in a statement, "He has decided to take a break from the talks."

A source with knowledge of the negotiations says Coburn ultimately broke ranks after members of the group rejected his proposal to introduce a global cap on Medicare spending that would have cut $150 billion from current beneficiaries.

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Osama Bin Laden

Obama Thanks SEAL Team Who Killed OBL For 'Job Well Done'

Susan Crabtree | May 6, 2011, 4:02PM

President Barack Obama at Fort Campbell, Ky.

President Obama flew to Fort Campbell, Ky., Friday to personally congratulate the special operations team responsible for the killing of Osama bin Laden, telling them and the rest of the troops on the base "job well done."

Vice President Joe Biden joined Obama in privately thanking the Navy SEAL team just hours after bin Laden's terror network al Qaeda confirmed the death of their leader and vowed to avenge it and retaliate against Americans.

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Eric Cantor

Show Us The Money First! Republicans Press Biden For Specifics On Obama Debt Plan Ahead Of Meeting

Brian Beutler | May 4, 2011, 11:31AM

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Two Republicans representing Congress at a forthcoming meeting with Vice President Joe Biden on debt reduction say they need more information from the Obama administration before they can constructively participate in negotiations.

In a letter to Biden, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) press for a fully fleshed-out version of President Obama's plan to reduce the deficit.

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