By Michael Coleman

Albuquerque Journal

Dec. 14, 2012

Former Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico – a battle-hardened veteran of congressional budget wars – has some advice for national leaders negotiating a long-term budget deal: Stay away from television cameras and do your work in private.

Domenici, a Republican who served as chairman or ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee throughout the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and the economic recession of the 1990s, said a deal to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” is elusive and negotiating in public only makes agreement harder to reach.

House Speaker John Boehner, the GOP’s point man in talks with President Barack Obama, has stood before cameras several times this week to outline the lack of progress in working out a deal with the White House.

“We’ve had these kinds of budget agreements in the past, but never quite as complicated as this one,” Domenici told the Journal this week. “We negotiated behind the scenes and then got a bigger group together and finished the work. Never did we go public and talk so much about what should be done.

Read the full article here

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Economic Policy Project