That's what Dean Baker says about Conrad's budget blueprint.
Conrad's plan would reduce the projected 2015 deficit by approximately 1.6 percentage points of GDP more than President Obama's budget. Since most projections still show the economy to be well below full employment levels of output by this year, the cuts in spending and higher taxes in Senator Conrad's plan will reduce the level of output. If we assume an average mulitplier of 1, then output will be 1.6 percent lower in 2015 than would otherwise be the case. If employment falls by the same amount, then Senator Conrad's plan would throw roughly 2.3 million people out of work.
The sense that Washington doesn't really get what 10 percent unemployment means for the country, or that they've come to internalize it to believe somehow that it's a structural problem that will eventually be be overcome by a growing economy. Conrad seems to buy in to that, rejecting the argument by Christina Romer that the problem isn't structural, it's aggregate demand that could be increased with stimulative policies--more spending, more money creating more jobs.
HuffPo's Ryan Grim attributes Conrad's draconian budget to a bloc of "conservative Democrats and various tacticians - [which] opposes doing a budget resolution at all. It's an ugly vote in an ugly year, they argue, best to avoid it." Confidence inspiring, no, legislating through avoidance?
Meanwhile, Grim reports, progressive Senators are pushing Conrad to recognize the reality of 41 Senate Republicans, and to include reconciliation language in the budget that would allow them to .
Conrad's being pressured to include broad reconciliation language that would allow Democrats to move large chunks of their agenda by majority vote. Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), both committee members, told HuffPost they've pushed Conrad on it, though what he'll do is still uncertain. "This is something that needs the chairman's support. This is something that he needs to initiate," said Cardin.
Conrad will begin marking up his budget on Wednesday afternoon.
"I'm pushing it very hard. If we're going to go forward and create the kind of jobs we need, we can't wait for 60 votes," said Sanders, citing the public option, energy policy, transportation and school construction as projects that could be done through reconciliation....
Reconciliation is mentioned twice in Conrad's summary. The plan includes a reconciliation instruction for jobs legislation and reserve funds that "facilitate passage of other bills promoting job growth." Conrad's summary also says that his budget "continues the requirement that reconciliation be used for deficit reduction only."
Hopefully Cardin and Sanders can prevail and get broad reconciliation rules included. Republicans are going to continue to obstruct every major piece of legislation that comes down the pike. The responsible thing for legislators to do is recognize that and do what's right for the country.