Michael Shear of the New York Times is very enthusiastic about the Gang of Six budget proposal. He’s really pumped up, despite the fact that his piece on the proposal does briefly acknowledge reality:
The nine-page document that [Sen. Mark] Warner and his Senate partners released on Tuesday is far from finished legislation, and there is just not time to finalize it before the debt ceiling deadline in early August.
While Shear mentions the fact that the Gang of Six bill has zero chance of being enacted into law before the August 2nd deadline when the Treasury will begin defaulting on at least some of its obligations, the piece reads like the bill is some kind of godsend or solution to the impasse in Washington DC. I don’t mean to suggest that the Gang of Six’s approach is entirely dead on arrival. It may be revisited in the fall and form the basis for some larger budget agreement. But it’s essential that readers of the Times have some realistic information about what’s happening in Washington DC. For example, yesterday, the Senate Majority Whip, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said, “The Gang of Six plan has not been drafted nor has it been scored by the CBO — it’s not ready for prime time.”
Durbin said it could take weeks or months for the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the deficit-reduction effect of the massive package. He said flatly there is no time to do it before national borrowing authority runs out Aug. 2.
Majority Leader Harry Reid made similar points in his statement. They’re encouraged by the cooperation and they might incorporate some of the Gang of Six’s ideas into the debt ceiling bill, but the bill itself isn’t written, isn’t scored, and won’t be part of any deal.
There’s this quaint obsession with so many who cover American politics over any hint of bipartisan agreement. Here’s reality: a small group of senators proposed something too late to make a difference. And it has tax hikes so the House Republicans won’t support it even in the fall.
C’mon, Shear. Do your job and quit wanking.
