(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Vice President Joe Biden’s bipartisan deficit-cutting group should stop taking breaks when one or both houses of Congress is in recess.
The Nevada Democrat, in an interview posted on the PBS “NewsHour” website, said about the group, “I have one big complaint. And that is, they shouldn’t be taking breaks. They should be meeting every week, multiple times each week.”
Biden and six lawmakers from both parties are trying to work out a deficit-reduction plan in time for Congress to meet an Aug. 2 deadline for raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.
The group held its first meeting on May 5, had three get- togethers this week and plans to meet as many as four times next week. It has skipped other weeks when either the House or Senate was in recess. Both houses will be in session during four of the seven remaining weeks before Congress’s August vacation.
“All these congressional recesses, that should have no bearing,” said Reid, who isn’t a member of the group.
“I’m saying that when the Senate is in recess we should be working on this,” he said Reid. “When the House is in recess we should be working.”
© Copyright 2013 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.