Gang Bang: Senate Plan Pours Cold Water on House Party

The message behind the timing of the Gang of Six's roll out of their plan, on the day the House was passing the radical, unpolished, and naive "Cut, Cap & Balance" legislation, could not have been more clear: "Adults are asserting control. It is time to get serious."

The Speaker wanted his entire caucus to get behind Cap, Cut and Balance ostensibly to increase his "leverage" in negotiations with the President. The Gang (rejoined by Tom Coburn) had other ideas. The President is now aligned with a group that spans the ideological spectrum of 90 percent of the Senate (other than the Jim DeMint and Bernie Sanders afficiandos on the far right and left). Boehner, Cantor and the 80 go-go freshmen are now all alone, now saddled with another vote on Medicare and Social Security that makes the Ryan budget look progressive.

There is still a long way to go in this crisis and the stock market's giddy reaction seemed to be based on this being the first promising news in weeks rather than the emergence of a clear path out of the crisis. As Harry Reid gripped, you can't take a two page outline that reforms the tax code, rewrites the budget process, changes social security, and sucks hundreds of billions out of Medicare, and get legislation to the President in two weeks. And there is still opposition among a clique of Senators on raising the debt limit at all. Not to mention the House.

Perhaps what could happen now is to revisit the concept of a short term debt extension of 60 days based on an agreement that the parties would use the Gang outline as the new starting point for comprehensive talks. Or maybe the McConnell kick the can approach begins to look more attractive to the House Republican caucus compared to the $ 1 trillion in revenue enhancements in the Gang proposal.

So, there is still drama to come. But at least for this one day, serious people have moved to the forefront and those more interested in chest-thumping than governance look, well, small.