They Report, We Decry

The Hill says there’s a budget plan in the Senate! And it’s only 799 days late! And it’s crap! Take a look:

The budget plan would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, according to the baseline used by its author, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). Using the benchmark assumptions of Obama’s fiscal commission, Conrad said his budget would reduce the deficit by nearly $5 trillion.

Roughly half of that total would come from raising government revenues through new taxes and the closure of special tax loopholes, according to Senate sources familiar with the plan.

The tax hikes will raise less revenue than expected — they always do. Unexpectedly, I suppose. The spending cuts don’t include any kind of fundamental reform to Medicare — which is an albatross — or to ObamaCare — which is an albatross wearing an anvil.

But read this other bit from the report:

The prospects of the blueprint passing the Senate are bleak, but its emergence after months of negotiation is aimed at countering GOP criticisms that Democrats haven’t passed a budget in two years. [Emphasis very much added]

Did you get that? The phony-baloney plan is nothing more the political theater. Conrad doesn’t have the votes, but he knows Harry Reid needs some good press.

That’s your World’s Greatest Deliberative Body™ hard at work.