Coburn: GOP should take best deal it can

Coburn’s comments were released on the last day the government is currently funded and came as Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill continued to argue over whether the current debate is over spending cuts or social issues. 

Republicans on Friday chalked up the current standoff to disagreements over how much to cut, while Democrats blamed GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. 

The Oklahoma senator is also not alone among prominent Republicans in calling for a deal, with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, making similar comments. 

“It’s pretty hard to get spending cuts when you don’t control the White House and you don’t control the Senate,” Coburn told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt. 

During the interview, Coburn said he thought a vote to raise the debt ceiling would come between June 10 and July 4, and indicated it would need to be accompanied by serious deficit-reducing measures like those proposed by President Obama’s fiscal commission. 

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the government will hit the debt ceiling by May 16, but that steps could be taken to delay the U.S. from defaulting on its debt until around July 8.

“You’re not going to have the first Republican vote for that until we have a plan that puts this country on a glide path to solving its problems,” said Coburn, a member of the debt panel who has been working with a bipartisan group of senators on deficit reduction.