Sen. Tom Coburn is angry that the Senate can’t seem to make any progress on deficit reduction. “The lack of leadership and initiative in the Senate is appalling,” he says. Then this:
For the past several months I have been meeting with a small group of senators from both parties, informally known as the Gang of Six, that was designed to force the idle — not gridlocked — Senate, and then the House and the president, to enact a long-term deficit-reduction package. Our talks reached an impasse this week when, in my view, it became clear we would not be able to produce a balanced, specific and comprehensive deal that would improve on, and in some ways meet, the standard set by the Bowles-Simpson plan.
OK, let me get this straight. A group of six — six! — senators meeting together intensively for months can’t manage to agree on a deficit reduction plan. And this is mostly because of Coburn himself, who walked out when the other five wouldn’t agree to his ever-shifting list of demands. And yet, Coburn wants us to believe that even though six senators can’t manage to agree on a plan, a hundred senators can. Despite the fact that, as usual, it will be Coburn himself throwing bombs from the sidelines if anyone tries.
Chutzpah, baby! Or something.
