The atrocious Gang of Six, waiting on the sidelines in the backstage, is hoping for Senator Reid's plan to fail so they can again push through their austerity package, loaded with cuts to the big three: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as a final deal that addresses the debt ceiling issue.
“Reality is that both sides have to see that their favorite position cannot prevail,” Conrad said. “It’s at that point you can reach a principled compromise. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re very close.”
The Gang of Six is “going to be prepared to be a part of the solution” once the deadlock happens, Conrad said. The group of senators has a draft that is undergoing revision by “the staffs of all the members,” he said.
Coburn and the rest of the group announced a deficit-reduction package earlier in July that would make $9 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, slash defense spending and raise nearly $1 trillion in revenue by ending tax breaks.
This is the plan that would cut Medicaid, and get rid of Senator Ted Kennedy's legacy, the CLASS Act, which is a national, voluntary long-term care insurance program. Earlier, I asked what happens if Senator Reid's plan fails and if Boehner's plan fails, and this looks like where the end game may be going---to a plan that cuts Social Security by $1,300 a year and lowers corporate tax rates.
One of the best Senators in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders, called out this plan for what it is:
One of the long-term deficit reduction plans came from the so-called Gang of Six. We do not know all of the details of that proposal. In fact, we never will know because a lot of the decisions are booted to committees to work out the details.
It is fair to say, however, that Senators Coburn, Crapo and Chambliss deserve congratulations. Clearly, they have won this debate in a very significant way. My guess is that they will probably get 80 percent or 90 percent of what they wanted. In this town, that is quite an achievement, but they have stood firm in their desire to represent the wealthy and the powerful and multinational corporations. They have threatened. They have been smart. They have been determined. And at the end of the day, they will get almost all of what they want. That is their victory, and I congratulate them.
Unfortunately, their victory will be a disaster for working families in this country, for the elderly, for the sick, for the children and for low-income people.
For more on just how disastrous the Gang of Six plan would be if the Reid plan does not make it through the Senate and the House (assuming the backdoor Catfood Commission in Reid's plan wouldn't do the same),
please read below from ThinkProgress:
The Congressional Budget Office will score the plan as a $1.5 trillion tax cut, as it lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to between 23 and 29 percent, eliminates the alternative minimum tax, and lowers personal income tax rates. But by closing loopholes, the Gang of Six says they’ll raise $1.3 trillion in revenue.
The disparity can only be explained because they employ an accounting gimmick — the two projections use different CBO baselines. The tax cut number is compared to current law, which assumes the Bush tax cuts will expire and the AMT will take effect, neither of which seems likely to happen. The revenue number is compared to a “plausible baseline” (which assumes expiration of the high-end Bush tax cuts).
The plan also recommends “reforming” Social Security in ways that will even affect current retirees. But not a penny of the money saved will go to deficit reduction, which begs the question — why include Social Security at all? The Gang of Six has said all the changes will go toward securing the long-term financial security of the program, but Social Security is already solvent until 2037 and does not contribute to the deficit.
The cuts in the Gang of Six plan aren’t minor, either. It proposes a chained CPI adjustment to Social Security, which may not be a bad idea when combined with other measures to boost benefits and strengthen the program, but on its own is tantamount to a $1,300 cut each year for recipients over their lifetimes. Strengthen Social Security co-chair and former Obama adviser Nancy Altman has denounced the idea as an overly harsh cut. “The chained-CPI is poor policy, and given that seniors vote in disproportionately high numbers, it is equally poor politics,” she said.
Most of what was in the Gang of Six plan was in the Obama proposal that was offered to Speaker Boehner as well. This is class warfare perpetuated by those at the top upon the middle and lower class, as well as the working poor.
It's got to be stopped in its tracks.