Fox 31 KDVR -- Bennet "Not Interested" in Democratic Campaign Job

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By Eli Stokols

In an interview Friday afternoon with FOX 31, Sen. Michael Bennet said he is "not interested" in becoming the next chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nevada, asked Bennet if he'd be interested in leading the party's senate campaign operation for the next two years, a job that would entail more travel and put Bennet in charge of raising millions on behalf of the party's senate candidates.

Elected to a full term last week after a narrow win over Republican Ken Buck, Bennet told FOX 31 he wants to focus on the work ahead in Congress, including a looming vote on the extension of the Bush tax cuts in the "lame-duck" session of Congress that begins on Monday.

"I don't have any objection to hard work, but I want to focus on the economy, Colorado, the debt and the deficit," Bennet said. "I think that'll be enough to keep my hands full.

First and foremost, Congress is set to resume Monday with renewed talks on extending some or all of the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of the year.

Bennet continues to advocate extending all the tax cuts, even for the richest Americans, for at least one year, a compromise that may be enough to satisfy colleagues on the right; progressives, however, are up in arms over hints from the White House this week that such a compromise may be in the works.

"We ought to extend them for a year, but we also ought to have a conversation in that year about how we're going to pay for them," Bennet said. "All these decisions, they come up and they're talked about as though they're in a vacuum -- and they all relate to each other."

Extending all the tax cuts for another 10 years is expected to add $4 trillion to the ballooning national debt.

"These are huge issues for families today that aren't able to find the jobs they found in the last century and also for our kids who don't want to be burdened by this debt and this deficit," Bennet said.

The outrage from both Democrats and Republicans at this week's deficit reduction plan from the president's bipartisan commission, which calls for major spending cuts and tax increases, underscores just how difficult it will be for politicians to find common ground when it comes to dealing with the nation's financial future.

Bennet, a former businessman who has staked out a position as a moderate in an increasingly partisan Congress, hopes that his colleagues will put policy ahead of politics on this issue.

"I think the last thing we should be doing is reacting to this and saying we have to take everything off the table," Bennet said. "As someone who spent a lot of my career in business, I know that If you approach deal-making that way, you never get anything done. So I think what we should be is open-minded. I think it all needs to be considered."

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