Obama's big debt-ceiling "compromise" is really just his old budget proposal

Now, think about how these two approaches relate to what we’re hearing about the debt-ceiling talks. Simply put, President Obama has offered what amounts to his own budget proposal from earlier this year (as amended by his April speech) and called it a big bipartisan deal. But what is bipartisan about it? What it is in the “big” deal outline that was in the Republican budget but not in Obama’s budget? Nothing.

In effect, Republicans are being asked to accept several of the policies their budget took to be counterproductive (like reinforcing the fee-for-service model of health-care entitlements and increasing the tax burden on a struggling economy), to abide the implementation of Obamacare (which would be taken for granted and untouched in what purports to be a major long-term budget deal), and to settle for the Democratic version of tax reform and discretionary cuts. The Democrats, meanwhile, are being asked to settle for Obama’s budget and would be made to accept none of what they take to be counterproductive Republican proposals. Sounds like a great bi-partisan deal, doesn’t it?

A much more logical deal would involve each of the parties getting those among its proposals that are also among the other party’s, and not being made to accept or implicitly sanction policies it takes to be significantly counterproductive or harmful except in return for ones that the other party would otherwise veto. That’s what compromise generally involves.