But we need to see the plan before we can lend any support:
A top Democrat pressured fellow progressives Tuesday to support---rather than fight---a far-reaching budget deal that includes cuts to entitlement programs to avert the coming fiscal cliff.“We cant be so naive to believe that just taxing the rich will solve our problems,” said Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. “Put everything on the table. Repeat. Everything on the table.”
No. Everything need not be placed on the table before discussions have even begun---that's a loser's poker play---and no, nobody is so naive. As noted elsewhere, we're perfectly happy to make generous cuts to health care, and if Team Teabilly was a good-faith bargaining partner who really cared about deficits, they'd take a good long look at any program that could lop hundreds of billions off the budget at the stroke of a pen. But they're not, and that's why they won't. And it's why you don't double down your chips before the other side has even ante'd up.
Dude, you won the last election---you owe it to the voters to make the other side compromise with you, not the other way around. Period. Hasn't Team Democrat learned anything from the last four years? Either that, or the fix is already in, and Dick Durbin's just making it look like we're going to engage in some substantive debate when terms of surrender have already been agreed to in private. Ignorant or dissembling, whichever it is, that buffalo don't fly around here.
---Baron V
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