'Gang Of Six' Desperate To Find Budget Solution

Despite suspicions that the "Gang of Six" is doomed, this bipartisan group of senators looking to mediate the U.S. budget battle could be key to Vice President Joe Biden's long-range deficit-control efforts.

"The rumors of our demise are exaggerated," said one Senate aide familiar with the Group of Six's work.

The Obama administration and Congress are desperately searching for a bipartisan deficit-reduction deal. Getting one would clear the way for critical legislation to increase the U.S. government's borrowing authority.

Washington's failure to increase the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt limit would put the government on the cataclysmic path to a first-ever default on its debt obligations in early August.

Lately, the spotlight has shone on what's being called the "Group of Six Plus One" to save the day: Biden, three senators and three leading members of the House of Representatives.

They carry plenty of political heft and the ability to whip rank-and-file members of Congress into supporting a potential deal to enact a wide range of spending cuts.

But it is the Senate's Group of Six, which is avoiding the limelight, that is seen as having the heavyweight expertise to sort out complicated budget issues, along with the willingness to consider tax increases and popular benefit program cuts needed for a long-term fix of the country's fiscal mess.

"Everybody (in the Senate's Gang of Six) has a sense of urgency and wants to get an agreement soon. Hopefully, they'll work out the remaining issues that need to be addressed and announce a deal," said another aide familiar with the talks.

That is not to say their work is mostly done. "There are a number of remaining issues," the aide added.

A third aide said the six senators were "slogging through the issues one would expect to be difficult, which would be entitlements and revenues."

Without reform, entitlements -- the huge federal retirement and healthcare benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- are on track to escalate government debt inexorably as the U.S. population ages.

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