Washington’s modern elite are finally getting a grip on themselves.

Kent Conrad, the long-serving North Dakota Senator and chair of the Senate Budget Committee, plans to announce his retirement today, according to Chris Cillizza. This seems like a pickup for Republicans, though potential Democratic candidate Earl Pomeroy would at least have a track record of winning statewide and positive name ID.

This has become the bipartisan baseline in Congress. Mark Pryor is just another example, out there talking about putting Social Security and Medicare “on the table” for cuts to “bring our spending into balance.” That neither program has anything to do with the federal budget deficit is besides the point.

Social Security is under threat because Democrats have taken up the cause, under the rubric of “responsibility” and “getting our fiscal house in order.” It’s about the least propitious time to do that, but nevertheless.

The public believes that the President is sincere in wanting to reduce the budget deficit because he is, in fact, sincere in wanting to reduce the budget deficit. He talks about it being in the medium term, but his opponents in the GOP want that to happen immediately, to cancel out the stimulative effects of this bill.

This is the gambit that Republicans have worked for a generation – make taxes so low and deficits so burdensome that pressure builds to slash spending. They claim that tax cuts shouldn’t be counted as part of the deficit but that any spending must be offset or eliminated. It doesn’t have to make sense. Because it’s working.

Republicans are basically telling you their strategy. They will call the expiration of the payroll tax cut an increase. They will use the reduction in revenue to claim that Social Security is in bigger financial trouble than it is. They will try to stop the money from getting restored.

Ethanol subsidies are up for renewal at the end of the year. And some prominent conservatives have pitched letting them expire, to the chagrin of farm-state Senators and establishment Republicans.

The latest leak out of the Catfood Commission is that the participants just can’t seem to agree on anything, with just 11 days to go until their report is due.

Finally, some good news coming out of November’s election: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) will replace outgoing Sen. Blanche Lincoln on the Senate Agriculture committee as chair.

Atrios is right: the idea that someone can be “serious” about the deficit while wanting to extend historically low tax rates is ridiculous. But that’s only true if you think yesterday’s Bowles-Simpson recommendations for deficit reduction had anything to do with deficit reduction. Clearly they don’t.