Kent Conrad: Some Of Us Will Have To Commit Political Suicide To Restore The Nation's Fiscal Solvency

By which he means that a bunch of fixes, none of them to the advantage of current or especially future seniors, are required to make Social Security solvent, and that's the easy one. Medicare is the killer, and will require tougher measures. (Although Paul Ryan's $11,000 per year voucher for private insurance seems like a pretty decent fix-- doesn't that buy a darned good policy?)

It's good people are talking about it, even if Conrad himself didn't volunteer for the suicide mission.

I sort of think that's what's required.

And on that... Allah's not sure how Pat Caddell's and Douglas Scheon's proposal that Obama agree to not run in 2012 could possibly result in solutions. I can see that -- if Obama promises not to run, and pushes hard for fiscal solvency, and a bunch of older Democrats and Republicans (hey, might as well retire) join him in a Grand But Very Unpopular Compromise, I could see all that happening. Sort of a big conspiracy, really, that a bunch of Republicans and Obama and a bunch of Democrats who have served long enough anyway will agree together to fall on their swords for their country.

And hey, I'd sort of really like Obama were that to happen. And John McCain.

So that's how it could happen. Will it happen? No, of course not.

On the other hand, when Pat Fuckin' Caddell tells you not to run, you better not fuckin' run.

posted by Ace at 07:38 PM

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