Head on over to Politico’s site today to see Will Marshall’s take on the implosion of the Gang of Six, a group of Senators trying to forge a bipartisan compromise on the budget. Here’s an excerpt, but click here to read the whole piece:
Sen. Tom Coburn’s defection from the Gang of Six obviously sets back prospects for restoring fiscal sanity in Washington. Nonetheless, the now diminished Gang remains the only plausible vehicle for advancing the political breakthrough achieved by the president’s Fiscal Commission.
To the surprise of many jaded Washington observers, the commission struck a fiscal “grand bargain” that marries tax and entitlement reform. Defying the Norquist Doctrine, Coburn and two other GOP senators agreed to close tax expenditures and use the savings not only to lower individual and corporate tax rates, but also to cut the federal deficit. This prompted a reciprocal act of political courage by several Democrats led by Sen. Dick Durbin, who embraced Social Security reforms unpopular with liberals.
Continue reading the whole piece at Politico.
