Harry Reid to Republicans: Give in on Bush tax cuts, gutting Medicare and maybe we can talk

Sen. Harry Reid (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) A bunch of Senate Republicans, with Orrin Hatch (UT) as their ringleader, sent a sternly worded letter [pdf] to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to let him know of their deep concern about the nation's "fiscal health." The job creators, they imply, are not doing their job creating thing because they are so worried that their tax rates might go up next year. Also, too, they're bitching about the agreement they made last year in the Budget Control Act (BCA) that could result in defense cuts at the end of the year.

To which Reid replied, in essence, lump it.

For the past few years, I have been disappointed to see Republicans Colleagues abandon common-sense approaches to the fiscal challenges facing our nation apparently out of fear of retribution from Tea Party extremists. The American people want a balanced approach to fiscal policy that combines smart spending cuts with revenue measures that ask millionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share. Yet a strict adherence to Tea Party ideology among Republicans in both the House and the Senate has so far put that balanced, common-sense solution out of reach.

Once Republicans are willing to abandon their commitment to more tax breaks for multi-millionaires and special interests and their plans to end Medicare, I am confident that we can reach an agreement. Unfortunately, it appears that Republicans' blind adherence to Tea Party extremism is making it impossible to reach this sort of balanced agreement before the election.

Democrats do have a trump card in this upcoming battle'two, actually, if they'll play them. The automatic cuts that could happen as a result of the BCA, if another agreement isn't reached, are far less destructive to programs Democrats generally support. Social Security and Medicaid are protected from any cuts, and the cuts to Medicare are limited to provider payments meaning beneficiaries won't see direct cuts. Letting the sequester'the automatic cuts included in the BCA'happen could be better than anything Republicans would agree to, all things austerity considered.

The other advantage Democrats have in the fight is that they don't have to act at all for the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. It's the old "do nothing" approach that would reduce the deficit by more than $7 trillion in the next decade. The downside for Democrats is that doing nothing would also allow middle-class taxes to rise, but the fact remains that Democrats don't have to act.