Durbin: There’s a post-Gang of Six future for bipartisan spending talks

Even after the Gang of Six lost one of its members, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) believes that the work the bipartisan negotiating group has done will lead to a budget deal.

“The question is whether senators on both sides of the aisle, Democrats, Republicans will step up and say, ‘Don’t stop,'” Durbin, one of the remaining Gang members, said Sunday. “We need to do this together. We need to sacrifice and make concessions on both sides if we’re ever going to solve this national problem.”

{mosads}Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) dropped out of the Gang of Six talks on Tuesday, casting a devastating blow to a group once seen as representing the best shot for a bipartisan deal to reduce the deficit. 

“We were ready to announce as far as I was concerned and then Sen. Coburn said ‘no, I’m not part of this’ and then walked away,” Durbin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

If the Gang of Six can’t draw support from more senators, Durbin said he believed the group working with Vice President Joe Biden was also a good option.

“Vice President Biden has already had some positive reaction from both political parties to his early negotiations,” Durbin said. “Let him be the spokesperson, let him be the mediator, and I think with his leadership we can come to a positive conclusion.”