Durbin: Congress needs ‘cooling off’ period

Though his Republican counterpart has called twice for Congress to return to Washington to address the country’s market downgrade, Sen. Dick Durbin says the time isn’t right for Congress to head back to the capital.

“No, I don’t want us to come back this week,” the Springfield Democrat, the second-highest-ranking member in the Senate, told the Daily Herald editorial board Monday. “Not just because I want some time off, but we really do need a cooling-off period in Washington.”

Durbin said he understands the call for Congress to demonstrate a sense of urgency on economic problems, but he believes that following weeks of partisan gridlock over the debt ceiling, lawmakers “really need some time to reflect and to get around and meet some people and talk about what’s going on” instead of being stuck in Washington, “in that bubble.”

Durbin’s statements come less than a week after Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Highland Park said nothing would reassure the markets more than seeing lawmakers back in the Capitol.

“The S&P downgrade is not about the fundamentals of the American economy. They’re critical of the fundamentals of the political system,” Durbin said.

“They said if you are going to play to this to midnight scenarios ... we don’t trust that you folks can ever get it together, because it will take bipartisanship to solve these problems.”

When Congress does reconvene, Durbin said, he believes the “Gang of Six,” the bipartisan Senate deficit reduction group of which he was a member, will be instrumental in helping the bipartisan 12-member supercommittee tasked with reducing the country’s deficit set a productive tone.

The panel in July proposed a plan that would institute spending caps and government program cuts, as well as more than $1 trillion in tax cuts.

Party leaders from each chamber selected three members to serve on the supercommittee.

No Gang of Six members were selected, something Durbin said was disappointing.

“I hope we become part of the solution. I hope we can even step beyond the supercommittee and (take part in) something that’s more significant. That could have an impact on the economy,” Durbin said.