THE ISSUE

A small group of U.S. senators continues to work on a solution to the federal deficit.

While most lawmakers are preoccupied with the election campaign, some members of the Senate, dubbed the Gang of Eight, have not been totally idle.

They have been quietly, sometimes secretly, searching for a solution, what The Hill newspaper called "the elusive grand deficit bargain," to that potentially calamitous day when all the Bush tax cuts expire and $109 billion in automatic across-the-board spending cuts are to take effect, the much discussed fiscal cliff.

Their idea, quite a sensible one, is to draw up a plan to deal with that crisis so that when Congress returns for its lame-duck session following the election the members are not proceeding from a totally blank piece of paper. ...

Once the election is over Congress has only 55 days to come up with a solution. The House is ready with a bill that would postpone the tax hike and the automatic budget cuts for one year.

But this would be another dreary example of Congress not solving problems, only postponing them or, as they like to say on the Hill, kick the can down the road.

Dale McFeatters' editorial is distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.