Yesterday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that Washington’s Senator Patty Murray will co-chair the new Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is a bipartisan, 12-member panel created by the deal struck by President Obama and Congressional leaders in late July 2011 to allow the government to raise the federal debt ceiling.
Reid also appointed two other Democratic senators, Max Baucus of Montana and John Kerry of Massachusetts, to the panel.
Baucus is chairman of the Finance Committee, which has authority over Medicare, Medicaid and taxes and Kerry is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
The U.S. Senate Republicans and the U.S. House Democrats and Republicans have yet to name their representatives to the Committee.