With Republicans faulting President Obama for failing to offer a deficit-reducing budget, some Democrats are defending the president while noting that half of the 12 elected members of Obama's doomed deficit commission are still on the job and looking for deeper cuts.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was one of 18 individuals appointed to Obama's deficit commission, which failed to reach a 14-member supermajority in December to advance recommendations for Congress to consider on reducing the debt.

Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Sunday that some of the members of the group have reconvened to take a second look at recommendations that would make deeper cuts than Obama's proposed budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1...