“A lot more room to find common ground”

by digby

Who says that the two sides can’t come together and find bipartisan union?

Rival deficit-cutting plans advanced by Republicans and Democrats on Congress’ secretive supercommittee would both mean smaller-than-expected cost of living benefit increases for veterans and federal retirees as well as Social Security recipients and bump up taxes for some individuals and families, according to officials familiar with the recommendations.In all, the changes would reduce deficits by an estimated $200 billion over a decade, a fraction of the committee’s minimum goal of $1.2 trillion in savings.A final decision by the panel on legislation to reduce deficits is still a few weeks off, and given the political difficulties involved, there is no certainty that the six Republicans and six Democrats will be able to agree.The two sides exchanged initial offers earlier this week, and each side swiftly found fault with the others’ proposal in the privacy of the committee’s rooms as well as in public.House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, noting published reports that Democrats are seeking $3 trillion in higher taxes, said, “This is the same number that was in the president’s budget, the same number that — that they — I don’t know that they found any Democrats in the House and Senate to vote for.”“I don’t think it’s a reasonable number,” he said. Boehner also chided Democrats for recommending $50 billion in savings from Medicaid over the next decade, well below what Republicans are seeking.“Let’s understand over the next 10 years, we’re going to spend $10 trillion on Medicaid. I just think there’s a lot more room there to help find common ground,” he said.

Read on. It gets better …

I think what’s really super-neat about this is that Social Security has zero financing problems for the next 35 years and expanding Medicaid was the only truly progressive piece of the Health Care reforms (and accounted for nearly half of the newly insured.)

There are many worse things than this Super Committee not making a deal or the congress failing to pass it if they do. Like the Super Committee making a deal and the congress passing it. After all, the congress doesn’t actually have to abide by that ridiculous debt ceiling agreement.

Remember what John McCain said:

My reaction is that if there’s a failure on the part of the supercommittee, that we will be amongst the first on the floor to nullify that provision. The Congress is not bound by this. It’s something we passed, we can reverse it.