'Gang of Six, Oops Five': Are they still relevant?

This is a very sad situation. These five senators have a huge task in front of them. I don't think they really want to get it done. It appears that a lot of political postering is going on, but no real problem solving.

In an uncomfortable display Wednesday, four of the five remaining members of the Senate’s Gang of Six tried to convince a crowd at the Peter Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington that they might still produce a bipartisan debt deal.

But behind some uncomfortable laughs, pointed glances, and the shared acknowledgement that bipartisan deals are difficult to achieve in a hyper-partisan era was the same uncertainty that has plagued the group all along. Only now the gang is running out of time and operating one man down.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) couldn’t characterize the group’s status in the week since colleague Sen. Tom Coburn said he needed to step away from negotiating. Are they just on a “break?”

“I’m not giving up hope that Tom’s going to come back,” Chambliss told a packed auditorium. “This needs to be a bipartisan agreement if we’re going to have one… We’re very hopeful at the end of the day that Tom is going to rejoin the group, but I don’t know when that will be.”

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