Photo courtesy of Reuters
Brian Beutler
reports:
President Obama's quest to reach a historic budget agreement with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) fell into deep doubt Thursday, after a noisy rebellion by Senate Democrats over reports that Obama might hand Republicans the farm on discretionary and entitlement spending, with few or no guarantees that the GOP will accept any new tax revenues.
And..
If the initial leak was meant to serve as a trial balloon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) shot it out of the sky the same day, after a contentious meeting with White House budget director Jack Lew. A Senate leadership aide told me that Reid will set the wheels in motion to pass a backup plan no later than Sunday unless a deal that can pass both chambers is agreed to before then. And the administration, clearly in damage control mode, summoned Democratic leaders up Pennsylvania Ave late in the day to clear the air, nurse wounds, and lay out a possible framework for a grand bargain to the skeptical crowd.
That leaves us at crunch time. After Friday's symbolic vote on Cut, Cap, and Balance, the President and Congressional leaders will have about 48 hours to announce a deal that can pass both Houses. If that doesn't happen, Reid will file cloture on a fallback plan -- Plan Z -- he's negotiated with Mitch McConnell to avert catastrophe. According to top Senate Democratic and Republican aides, that plan's largely written, sitting on a shelf, and ready to go if the prospects for a bigger deal diminish.
Read the whole thing. The upshot is that Dems fiercely recoiled at the "Grand Bargain" again, especially considering the fact that the revenue portion will be "triggered." In other words, it will never happen. Just as soon as Obama puts ink on all the devastating spending cuts, most of which have nothing to do with the reasons we have a deficit, Republicans will promptly renege on any deal to increase taxes. President Obama may still "take Boehner at his word" as he most famously said, but some Congressional Democrats at least have enough sense to know that doing so is ridiculous.
Cantor added his own gambit to the mix:
Multiple reports surfaced late Thursday that a trade-off might be in the works: Republicans would agree to the tax trigger if Obama and Dems would agree to nix the health care law's individual mandate -- an unpopular, but crucial component of the reforms Obama signed last year. This is precisely the sort of swap House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has argued for recently.
Referring to negotiations with Democrats, Cantor last week told reporters, "Every time the discussion started about, well, Republicans need to raise taxes, I would proffer back, then you put ObamaCare repeal on the table."
Wow. You talk about hard bargaining, that is exactly the sort of ballsy move I would make. If the president is already moving towards delaying the tax increase part, why not demand more? Go ahead and move to get rid of the mandate, which will basically kill the ACA. Of course, I suspect Big Insurance will have a lot to say about that, considering they are the primary sponsors of the health insurance mandate.
No matter what, however, we are starting to see that the framework of whatever will happen will basically involve significant cuts to the safety net and probably no additional taxes. The debt ceiling will be raised, of course. There was never any doubt about this fact in my mind. Now even Tea Party Republicans are saying it must be done. Which was exactly why I said this whole thing was a bluff, and all Democrats needed to do was stand pat and wait.
But the President is insisting on major cuts, so I supposed he's going to get them in some form. If not now, eventually. Presidents usually get most of what they want. But for Democrats, the best bad deal they can get at this point isn't the Gang of Six, it isn't President Obama's Grand Bargain, it is McConnell/Reid.