Negotiatin' Democrat style
by digby
This man was a very, very powerful American politician widely admired for his bipartisan bonafides:
“My own belief,” Conrad said, “is what we ought to do is take Speaker Boehner’s last offer, the president’s last offer, split the difference, and that would be a package of about $2.6 trillion.”
Chris Wallace, to his credit, pressed Conrad for details. And Conrad provided them. “The spending cuts would be $1.45 trillion. The revenue would be $1.15 trillion. So, you see there, that’s a combination of $2.6 trillion.”
This in an amazing offer for a Democrat to make. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has already accepted that “a balanced deal,” by his definition, would include a ratio of 1:1 spending cuts to tax increases. Indeed, his second offer included $1 trillion in tax increases in return for $1 trillion in spending cuts ($1.3 trillion if you count interest). By averaging Boehner’s second offer with Obama’s third offer — that is to say, by starting from a baseline that includes more rounds of Democratic concessions than Republican concessions — Conrad is proposing a more lopsided deal than Boehner is currently asking for.
Boehner obviously isn't getting the job done properly so the Democratic Chairman of the Budget committee and Finance subcommittee on Taxation, IRS Oversight, and Long-Term Growth stepped up to show him how it's done. Selling out average Americans, that is. He's a champion.
(Ezra also explains why the Democrats are so terrified of going over the cliff. Don't read it on an empty stomach.)