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Toomey's plan on the sequester is rejected

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted down Pat Toomey's plan Thursday to offer flexibility on the $85 billion budget cuts set to begin Friday under the so-called sequester - but only after an unusually intense debate between the Pennsylvania Republican and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat.

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted down Pat Toomey's plan Thursday to offer flexibility on the $85 billion budget cuts set to begin Friday under the so-called sequester - but only after an unusually intense debate between the Pennsylvania Republican and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat.

Toomey's bill was the first of two plans meant to soften or eliminate the automatic cuts, though both parties knew that neither would pass.

The proposal crafted by Toomey and Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) would have given President Obama flexibility to make the cuts as he chose instead of applying them across the board.

"Any competent middle manager of any business in America knows when you have to tighten your belt, you go through and you prioritize things," Toomey said on the Senate floor. "Give the president flexibility to cut the items that would not be disruptive to our economy."

Durbin called Toomey's argument "mindless," saying cuts that large would have a negative impact no matter how they are done, given that many areas of federal spending are off-limits and only seven months are left in the fiscal year.

"Come on, get real," Durbin said, later adding: "Please don't sugarcoat it and say there is just a magic wand out there to find all this money."

He and Toomey talked over one another, trading jabs in a way rarely seen on the Senate floor.

Moments later, Toomey's bill failed in a 62-38 vote; nine fellow Republicans opposed the plan, voicing worries about handing too much power to the president.

The White House had threatened a veto.

Democrats called for replacing the sequester cuts with a mix of measured cuts and tax increases.

That idea, though, also failed: 51 senators voted for it and 49 opposed it, leaving it short of the 60 votes needed to proceed to a final vote.