According to the Washington Post, Harry Reid is evidently working with Mitch McConnell on a debt ceiling deal that sounds utterly ridiculous. It's a variation of the McConnell plan, but contains exactly zero tax increases, all spending cuts, and doesn't really keep up with the deficit.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is working with McConnell on this approach. Aides said the two are discussing a strategy that would pair McConnell’s debt-limit proposal with at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts identified through bipartisan talks that Vice President Biden has led in recent weeks.
Fortunately, the White House isn't embracing this plan.
Ezra worked the numbers:
Think of it this way: The $4 trillion deal that the White House offered Boehner was 3:1 spending cuts to tax increases. If we move to a two-deal scenario in which the first deal is $2 trillion in spending cuts and then there’s a second $2 trillion deal that is, let’s say, 3:1 spending cuts to tax increases, the final deal is actually 7:1 spending cuts to tax increases, which means the spending cuts will have to go very, very deep.
Utterly ridiculous. I sincerely hope this isn't the deal. Or anything like it. And is it me, or is Harry Reid getting in the way of an internal Republican disaster?