GOP Faces Budget Battle Over How Far to Go

A battle is emerging within the Republican Party over whether to cooperate with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats on a package to cut the budget deficit or try to go it alone. As The Hill puts it, “The GOP has to decide whether to try to forge a bipartisan deficit-cutting deal with the president or to take a stand on deep spending cuts and wait until a possible GOP president in 2013 to enact changes.”

Republicans of all stripes agree that something must be done to slash the $1 trillion-plus annual pile red ink that faces us. “Momentum for deficit-cutting hasn’t been this great in many years,” Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a deficit-reduction advocacy group, tells The Hill.