Sen. Kent Conrad
It's unfortunate deficit peacock Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) is chair of the Senate Budget Committee, because is definitely much further right than the majority of the caucus, and has no problem attempting to push his will on his colleagues. Witness his
budget proposal.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has been bargaining for months in secret with Republicans in the so-called Gang of Six to craft a budget that might win bipartisan acceptance. On Tuesday, Conrad abruptly dropped the veil and rolled out his own offering for party colleagues—to brutal reviews.
"He's going to be a man without a country," the Democratic aide said, describing a contentious Tuesday briefing.
The problem for Democrats is that, rather than put down a firm Democratic marker from which the party can negotiate, Conrad has adopted a plan that resembles the work he's done with legislators across the aisle.
In bringing it forward himself, Conrad sets the starting point for the Democratic position in a more conservative spot than President Barack Obama's budget—and that was already a compromise. Obama's plan includes a spending freeze for federal workers, among many other concessions to the GOP.
"He's setting this out like it's the official Democratic position," a Democratic staffer said. "I don't know if this can pass his own committee without major changes."
It's that bipartisan pony, again. "He is hoping to salvage the work of the bipartisan group by attracting a few Republicans to the more conservative plan." While it's getting panned by fellow Democrats, some Republicans are rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of a Conrad budget laying down the marker for Senate Dems. "'I can’t imagine that the Conrad budget won’t be somewhat better than the president’s budget—it's got to be,' [Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told reporters. 'But [Republicans] need to look at it.'"
Conrad based his budget on the catfood commission non-report, the loose set of recommendations deficit commission co-chairs Erskine Bowels and Alan Simpson released when the full commission failed to fulfill its mission. There is one glaring, and thankful, omission, however. Conrad doesn't touch Social Security, which he says is on a separate budgetary track.
But outside of that, prepare for full-on austerity until and unless Senate Democrats get serious and start to work on the one budget that everyone from Paul Krugman to The Economist are calling the most serious and realistic proposal.