Clarion-Ledger - Miss. Sens. oppose budget deal; Bipartisan budget inadequate, Wicker and Cochran say

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By Deborah Barfield Berry

Republican Sens. Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran voted against a bipartisan two-year budget deal that passed the Senate on Wednesday, saying it doesn't go far enough to cut spending and will hurt some military retirees by reducing their retirement checks.

"I'm stunned that that we're penalizing military retirees," said Wicker, a member of the Senate Budget Committee.

Wicker had pushed to restore $6 billion for military retirement funding.

"We are making a good fight and making a good case," he said in an interview. "I wish we could win this battle, but it seems that we're going to have to live to fight another day."

The budget compromise passed the Senate 64-36. It passed the House last week 332-94, with Republican Reps. Gregg Harper, Alan Nunnelee and Steven Palazzo voting for it. President Barack Obama has said he will sign it.

Second District Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democrat in the Mississippi delegation, voted against the deal last week because it won't extend federal long-term unemployment benefits set to expire Dec. 28.

Some Democratic senators made the same complaint when the bill arrived in their chamber.

Federal labor officials say 13,500 Mississippians could lose benefits.

Cochran said last week the best way to help the unemployed is by "creating new jobs through a growing economy, reducing taxes on businesses and increasing options for coping with burdensome regulations."

Wicker also opposed extending the benefits.

The budget deal was crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash.

The deal would set discretionary spending levels at a little over $1 trillion a year for the next two years and would repeal and replace about 30 percent of the automatic, across-the-board sequestration spending cuts during those two years.

"Rep. Ryan and Sen. Murray made a good-faith effort to negotiate an agreement that would return some sense of order and transparency to the federal budget process," Cochran said in a statement. "I appreciate the difficulty of that effort but don't believe the agreement does enough about the most serious structural budget problems facing our nation."

Cochran, who is up for re-election next year, is being challenged by Republican Chris McDaniel, who is backed by several conservative groups.

In the current fiscal year, the budget deal would stop about $43 billion of the $109 billion in scheduled sequestration cuts. In fiscal 2015, it would stop about $20 billion of those cuts.

The sequestration cuts would be replaced by other budget cuts and increases in government fees, including higher security fees that would be tacked onto airline tickets.

The deal also ensures Congress will avoid another federal government shutdown.

Cochran, who supported the 2011 Budget Control Act that created the process leading to sequestration, said he thought the threat of sequestration cuts would force Congress and the administration to reform spending.

"That has not happened," he said.

Murray said it was important to compromise on a budget to ensure some certainty and avoid drastic cuts to defense defense spending and the threat of furloughs and layoffs.

"Nobody got everything they wanted," Murray said. "We each had to give up some things to get to where we are today."

Wicker, a member of the House-Senate conference committee created to negotiate a budget deal, said he and most other committee members didn't have enough input on the final agreement, which Ryan and Murray crafted largely in private.

Wicker said he backs some parts of the deal, including provisions eliminating some sequestration cuts.

His major objection was to the cut in military retirement pay. Wicker and Cochran supported a GOP amendment to restore $6 billion in retirement pay.

They were among 33 senators who voted Tuesday against proceeding to a final vote on the budget deal.

"I expected there would be a bunch of stuff in there I didn't like, ... but I really didn't think it would impact military retirees -- single them out in the way it does," Wicker said on CNN's Crossfire on Tuesday.

Wicker said average retirees will lose $83,000 over their lifetimes if the provision is implemented.

He said supporters of the amendment to restore the retirement pay are considering other options, including the possibility of attaching it to a must-pass bill next year.

"We've made progress in explaining the magnitude of this provision," he said. "We have, I think, moved public opinion to an extent that we have a reasonable chance of reversing this burden on military families."

Erin Kelly of the Gannett Washington Bureau contributed to this report.

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