The president has endorsed the Gang of Six plan. I would be pretty pissed off if he actually signed anything like that into law. But, I don’t have to worry about that right now because Reid and Durbin immediately signaled that there is no time to include the proposal in any bill to raise the debt ceiling.
It’s unknowable whether the president really wants to sign a bill that does the following:
As described by its creators, the framework calls for $500 billion in immediate spending cuts as a downpayment on a broader debt-reduction effort that would be carried out largely by existing legislative committees…
…The overall goals of the plan mirror President Obama’s fiscal commission: Deep cuts in government agencies, significant reductions in Medicare and a framework for keeping Social Security solvent over the next 75 years. It also seeks to raise $1 trillion in taxes over the next decade by rewriting the tax code to lower tax rates for households in all income categories while eliminating various tax breaks and deductions.
I don’t mind rewriting the tax code, but the rest of it is making poor, middle class, and elderly people pay for Bush’s wars. And it would be political and economic malpractice to take $500 billion out of the current economy.
But, hey, nothing is carved in stone right now, so I’m not going to get upset about a proposal that will change dramatically and won’t pass until, maybe, the end of the year.
This is all academic at the moment. The real action is still on the McConnell plan.
