Top Senate Democrat lays out deficit curbs

[apnu]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Senate Democrat is proposing tough budget rules to make it harder to run up the U.S. government deficit with new tax cuts or expansions of federal benefit programs.

If approved, the plan by Majority Leader Harry Reid would have an almost immediate impact on Congress' free-spending ways by requiring spending cuts or revenue increases to pay for new spending.

In the near term, Reid's "pay-as-you-go" plan would make it difficult to pass an extension next month of emergency unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers.

Under the pay-as-you-go concept, program cuts or revenue increases would be required to cover the cost of any new policies or programs. That means, for example, the tens of billions of dollars it would take to extend unemployment benefits beyond the six months regularly permitted would have to be "paid for" with tax hikes or cuts to other benefit programs.

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