HUFFINGTON 08.26.12
And yet, and yet...elections
change things.
If Romney does win after having
put his plan on the table this fall,
that might create a mandate for
reform that would give Democrats
cover to support a compromise proposal, like the one Wyden sketched
out with Ryan in December 2011.
Durbin acknowledged that
something has to be done, but
expressed pessimism about
whether the small bipartisan
group of senators currently
working on a deficit reduction
package will be able to reach an
agreement on Medicare.
“We have the different options
out, and I don’t know how far we
can go in choosing one. We can
choose, perhaps, a goal in savings, but if we have to drill down
into particulars on Medicare reform, it may be beyond any group
of eight senators to get that done.
You need a much larger conversation,” Durbin said.
After Ryan was announced, I
e-mailed Rhoades to get a sense
of how risky Romney thought
his pick had been. The campaign
manager, caught up in the day-today combat of the race, was not
interested in nuance.
“We’re going to win,” he wrote
back. “And Mitt’s going to
fix the mess.”
THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
“Even if Republicans control the
Senate, and the House and the
presidency, no Democratic senator could allow that to happen.
It would be filibustered to death.
That’s just a non-starter. And it’s
a non-starter for a good reason: It
won’t work.”
Durbin agreed.
“It takes time. You’ve got to
put in place skilled and weathered veterans of the process who
understand the budget, number
one, and the politics of Capitol
Hill, number two,” Durbin said.
“And he is assembling a team,
he would be, and it’s unlikely he
could achieve that level of mastery in a short time.”
Romney himself has indicated
he is not interested in trying to
force reforms that don’t have bipartisan support.
“Where there are opportunities
for people of reasonable minds to
come together and find common
ground, that’s the kind of legislation I like,” Romney told CNBC’s
Larry Kudlow in July.
“The idea of one party jamming
through something over the objection of the other tends to divide
the nation, not make us a more
safe and prosperous place. So if
there’s common ground, why I’m
always willing to have that kind of
a conversation,” Romney said.