Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader MitchMcConnell will push a revised budget plan this week aimed atallowing a debt-limit increase needed to avoid a government defaultas President Barack Obama presses for action in time for an Aug. 2deadline.

Reid of Nevada and McConnell are amending a proposal to giveObama the power to raise the debt limit in response to complaintsthe plan does little to reduce the deficit. They are consideringhaving House Republicans attach spending cuts to the legislation,according to a congressional aide, as well as provisions creating acommittee of lawmakers charged with finding additional savingslater.

“The good news is that Majority Leader Harry Reid and SenatorMitch McConnell are sitting down and working out an approach thatwe are going to try to tackle this week,” Senator Dick Durbin ofIllinois, the chamber's No. 2 Democrat, said on CBS's “Face theNation” yesterday. “We are going to be working toward a way toescape the crisis that would come if we default on America'snational debt.”