Kerry expressed support for a compromise from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid.
U.S. Senator John Kerry, seen above in this file photo, expressed support for a stop-gap compromise measure that would allow the debt ceiling to be raised incrementally.The GOP-backed budget cutting proposal that passed the House earlier this week without the support of Massachusetts' delegation faces significant opposition in the Senate Friday, including from Bay State Senator John Kerry.
The Associated Press reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has bumped up a vote on the Cut, Cap and Balance Act to Friday, ostensibly so the Democrat-controlled Senate can vote it down.
On the Senate floor Thursday evening, Kerry, a Democrat, said he hopes the vote will allow the Senate to "move quickly to the real business, which is avoiding default."
Kerry threw his support toward a fallback measure crafted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid. That measure would raise the debt ceiling incrementally through the 2012 elections, and in the meantime extend it by $100 billion once President Barack Obama requested such action.
"We have the opportunity, with the Reid-McConnell initiative to be able to put in place a process that will guarantee we have up-or-down votes on these critical issues after all the relevant committees have had the opportunity to weigh in, using perhaps the budget commission's report, together with what the so-called Gang of 6--which I don't think is a particularly appropriate name--has proposed," Kerry said.
Kerry's colleague, Scott Brown, a Republican, has been relatively reticent with his thoughts on the ongoing debate over the debt ceiling. He told The Boston Globe he hopes "to support a plan that avoids default by making substantial spending cuts and which is reasonable and bipartisan and has a chance of being signed into law."
The Senate will vote on the cut, cap and balance measure sometime Friday morning, though it is not expected to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate the way it did the Republican-controlled House.
In remarks on the House floor earlier this week, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, called the measure the "cut, cap, and balance ruse act." He joined the rest of the Commonwealth's House delegation in opposing the bill, which passed by a margin of 234-190.