GOP leader bucks party on taxes
By Mike Lillis - 11/16/11 11:41 AM ET

The third-ranking Senate Republican argued Wednesday that Republicans on the supercommittee need to offer more revenues if the deficit panel hopes to balance the country's books.

The comment from Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), who is leaving his party's leadership at the end of the year, bucks those made by the GOP leader of the suppercommittee. Rep. Jeb Hansarling (R-Texas), who said this week that Republicans will cede no more revenues as the high-stakes panel scrambles to reach a deal before Thanksgiving.

"This is about more than money, it's about whether the president and the Congress can competently govern," Alexander said. "We now have Republicans who have put revenues on the table [and] we have Democrats on the supercommittee who have put entitlements on the table.

"Both need to put more on the table and get a result and we're here to support them."

The remarks came during a press conference in the Capitol where more than 40 lawmakers, representing both parties and both chambers, urged the supercommittee to go well beyond its mandate to find $1.2 trillion in deficit savings over the next decade.

The supercommittee has less than a week to produce an agreement, which if approved by Congress would prevent automatic cuts to defense and discretionary domestic spending.

Alexander, who is stepping down from the GOP leadership at the end of the year in a bid to promote bipartisanship, suggested that protecting sacred cows — tax cuts for the Republicans and entitlement benefits for the Democrats — threatens the success of the high-stakes budget panel.

He offered similar remarks last week at the Reuters Washington Summit, where he said the obvious path to a deal was for Republicans to offer more tax revenues and Democrats to offer deeper entitlement cuts.

Democrats on the deficit panel are pushing for more revenue hikes to better balance the entitlement cuts the supercommittee Democrats have already offered. But Hensarling said Tuesday that the Republicans have given all the revenues they intend to.

"We have gone as far as we feel we can go,â€