But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is devising a sham that will never pass muster in the House. A Capitol Hill source with knowledge of the plan tells me: “It includes $1.2 trillion in OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] savings . . . which was assumed anyway, $1.2 trillion (over $1.1 trillion less than [Majority Leader Eric] Cantor identified in the Biden talks) and $300 billion in interest savings.” A Senate aide says dryly that Reid “has about a trillion in ‘savings’ from ending the war in Iraq that’s already going to end.” And a disgusted House adviser bluntly tells me that Reid’s plan “isn’t real.”Now is the time the House needs to put some teeth into their strength. If Boehner lets any debt cap deal go until after next years election it is a huge mistake, and it appears he knows that.
From the Speakers blog.
White House Is Making Political Argument “Wrapped In Economic Clothing.” “Look, to my eye this has all been political. The desire to get to 2013 can get wrapped in economic clothing but it’s fundamentally a political argument. The president doesn’t want to talk about his record of debt between now and the election and everyone knows that. They had a deal. And the deal was sitting there, waiting to be taken, and at the moment when they could get the deal they pushed for more taxes, which is a political argument at the expense of less entitlement reform, which is the substantive problem.”Obama, Reid and Pelosi own this debt. Screw em! Let him eat his own damn peas...
