My favorite gang is the postpunk Gang of Four, but for now DC is pouring over the Gang of Six proposal for deficit reduction.
There are a lot of moving parts to this proposal, but what’s striking to me is that it basically seems to just land us back where we’ve been stuck for a while. In earlier “grand bargain” talks with John Boehner and Eric Cantor, President Obama appears to have tried to sell them on the idea that they should team up with him to cut Medicare and domestic discretionary spending and that many Democratic votes could be procured for such an agenda if it was paired with some defense cuts and tax increases. Boehner and Cantor rejected that because they’re fundamentally opposed to tax increases. Indeed, they indicated that they would settle for smaller spending cuts than Obama put on the table if they could get an all cuts agreement. Now the Gang of Six has returned with what’s basically Obama’s “grand bargain” proposal which, in turn, was basically the Simpson-Bowles proposal. Spending cuts more or less across the board, plus some tax hikes. Maybe some Magic Senate Fairy Dust turns this into something that’s acceptable to the House GOP leadership, but as a matter of logic and consistency, I don’t see why that would be.
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