Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
David Atkins
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) said Sunday that he counseled President Obama not to champion the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission recommendations because that would have “automatically” turned House Republicans against them.
On a Fox News Sunday panel, freshman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), a member of the Budget Committee, said the president “totally ignored” the work of Bowles-Simpson and showed “no leadership” on the matter.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Conrad responded. “Look, he asked me for my advice. I told him look, ‘If you embrace this totality of Bowles-Simpson, what will happen is Republicans in the House will automatically be against it. So you need to make the case for why it’s necessary, but you need those of us in Congress to work it out.’”
I can’t decide: is it better for President Obama to have supported Bowles-Simpson, thus thankfully killing it but putting the President on record for supporting the awful thing? Or would it have been better for President Obama to have opposed it, making the leadership position more progressive, but giving the abomination a chance of passing through congress?
I have an idea: let’s just get rid of all the congressional Democrats who would actively support Bowles-Simpson instead?
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