TPM's Brian Beutler
looks at the odds for Catfood Commission II success or failure, and identifies some of the key issues.
Those issues are, primarliy: how does the threat of the automatic triggers play out; will the health or defense industry have more sway with the Republicans; and how much influence will the White House have in pressuring the Democrats. Add to those, how exactly will each side define what is acceptable on revenue hikes. It's a complicated scenario, where each side has good reason to root for gridlock.
Those are the principles that will govern the dynamic on the panel. Dems: no entitlement cuts without some revenue hikes. Republicans: no revenue hikes. If Republicans are willing to deal, then there'll be plenty of room for one or two Democrats to join the GOP in a slanted plan that meets the committee's charge.[...]
[...]If Republicans don't deal on taxes, they'll fall under increasing pressure from defense and health care interests to cave. That will drive a wedge through the Republican party, cleaving the war hawks from the anti-tax zealots, the first time in the recent past they've been forced to reckon with their incompatible big spending and no new taxes orthodoxies. But Democrats will be under pressure to cave as well, possibly even from President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who say the defense budget can't withstand $500 billion in further cuts.
If Democrats do cave, then they'll have allowed Republicans to run roughshod over them, despite controlling both the Senate and the White House. They'll have ransomed the hostage without capturing any of the captors, agreed to cut spending, including entitlements, by over $2 trillion without forcing the GOP to give an inch on revenue, and set themselves up to lose a generational fight with the right over the proper role of government.[...]
[Republicans] can push Democrats to cave on their demand for balance, on the threat that the enforcement mechanism will kick in if they don't relent. Or they can allow the enforcement mechanism to kick in, which would cut Medicare provider payments by two-percent across the board automatically. Each scenario will touch off a public political fight. One argument will go: "Democrats want rather raise taxes so badly, they'll allow deep cuts to military pay." The other will be: "Republicans are so committed to protecting the wealthy from paying a penny more in taxes that they'll allow deep cuts to defense and Medicare."
From a public opinion standpoint, the second argument should hold a little more weight, if Democrats could be nuanced enough to include the cost of the always and increasingly unpopular wars. Defense cuts are not popular, but cuts to Medicare are less so. And taxes on the wealthy are so hugely popular, Democrats should have the advantage, and should be willing to allow the automatic trigger to kick in to make that argument.
It seems that it's going to come down to what a revenue hike really is, both what the Democrats would accept as adequate, and what Republicans would think don't really count as revenue hikes but are tax "reform" that they could accept—what Republican committee member Dave Camp hinted at when he said "everything is on the table."