Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has not been traditionally opposed to a deficit reduction plan. The CBPP supports chained CPI, for example. So it’s quite something to see Greenstein, along with Paul van de Water and Richard Kogan, savage the Democratic opening bid in the Catfood Commission II, describing it as to the right of Bowles-Simpson, the Gang of Six and other deficit plans.

You thought you were paying excess FICA so there would be money when you retired. No. You were paying excess FICA so rich people and their corporations could have massive tax cuts. S&P should have limited its downgrade to the bonds in the Social Security Trust Fund. Those are never going to pay off.

Quinnipiac released their Florida poll numbers on the President and the debt ceiling bill, and they do not bode well for his 2012 chances in the swing state. His approval among Independents went from 42% last Wednesday through Sunday to 33% from Monday through Tuesday, while disapproval shot up from 52% to 61%. When asked to describe how they feel about the deal, more Independents said they were “angry” (23%) than either Republicans or Democrats.

The compromise position is already at hand; the Reid and Boehner plans have very few differences (though this is one that I hope gets ironed out). And anyway, Conrad would almost certainly be the co-chair of the “Super Congress” (if they just take the heads of the two budget committees, you’d have Conrad-Ryan), and he can trot out his Gang of Six plan at that point. But forcing it into the endgame of a debate where so much can go wrong seems just completely stupid to me.

These so-called deficit hawks just couldn’t imagine an agreement without their wise counsel, so they bigfooted into the debate. In the process, they blew up the only two solutions on the table at the time, and added this alternative that produced a panoply of opinions about how to move forward. It gave everyone something to hide behind, so they could say “I support a deficit plan, but they won’t bring the one I like up for a vote.” It’s the first rule of negotiation: you don’t throw in a whole new plan at the end of the process.

This gamesmanship at the end of the process blew up what would have been a substantial deal, with well over $3 trillion in spending solutions, more like $4 trillion if you include the foregone debt payments that would result. And yes, the accounting gimmick on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq accounts for a full trillion dollars.

But at least for everyone who’s tired of the depressing squabble, it’ll be over soon because of the upcoming Treasury default deadline, right? Umm…. maybe not.

A “friend” just forwarded this to me. It’s clearly going out to Dems still stupid enough to still be on the mailing list. Here’s my furious reaction.

If you get this despicable “plea” from Warner and the Democrats, I hope you’ll “respond appropriately.” I’d love to hear it.

Normally I consider myself pretty good at seeing through the political theater in Washington and figuring out what the maneuvering is really about. This time though, I’m really at a loss. What is going on appears to be less like a traditional PR political dance and more like a legislative mosh pit.

The sneaky provisions hurt the worst. The Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce say: Let’s quit taxing corporations. The Pretend Democrats see how close they can come to achieving the will of their corporate masters.