Four budgets, no Democratic votes

What do Paul Ryan?s budget proposal, Rand Paul?s budget proposal, Pat Toomey?s budget proposal and President Obama?s 2012 budget proposal have in common? All of them were considered by the Senate yesterday. And none of them received a single Democratic vote. Not even Obama?s 2012 budget, which Democrats argued had been superseded by the deficit-reduction proposal the White House unveiled in April.

The disagreement here is less about budgets than it is about tactics. Senate Republicans are voting for lots of budgets that can?t pass. Senate Democrats are refusing to vote for any budgets that can?t pass. Senate Republicans can?t believe Senate Democrats won?t take a stand. Senate Democrats can?t believe Senate Republicans keep taking so many unpopular stands.

In the end, Senate Democrats will vote for a budget. But it?ll be the one that passes. Senate Republicans will vote for that budget, too, but they?ll also have voted for all these other budgets, and they?ll have to defend those votes in their campaigns. ?I also voted for three budgets that didn?t privatize Medicare? is not a good answer to ?Why did you vote for a budget that privatized Medicare??

But if the Democrats have the better political strategy here, it?s not clear they have the better bargaining strategy. Republicans have committed themselves to a series of ideas that are very far to the right. They have made their position no tax increases, of any type, under any circumstances, at any time. They have voted to privatize Medicare and block-grant Medicaid. At this point, simply cutting deep into entitlements and agreeing to a deal in which there?s $1 of revenue for every $6 of spending cuts would be considered a compromise on their part.

Democrats, conversely, aren?t anchored to any specific proposal, have agreed that there should be many more spending cuts than tax increases, and are concerned that Republicans might actually let the debt ceiling cave in, and so they?re likely to get dragged into a deal that?s much further to the right than anything any of them would?ve imagined a year ago. They may win the election in 2012, but only after they lose the budget in 2011.

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=c621942cdf608b96412233d33b88692b

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