McConnell runs cover for Boehner in fiscal fight

Apparently John Boehner is so terrified of his caucus that Mitch McConnell made the opening offer on their fiscal bluff "negotiations."

In an interview in his Capitol Hill office, Mr. McConnell said if the White House agrees to changes such as higher Medicare premiums for the wealthy, an increase in the Medicare eligibility age and a slowing of cost-of-living increases for programs like Social Security, Republicans would agree to include more tax revenue in the deal, though not from higher tax rates. [...]

Mr. McConnell offered his ideas as examples of the structural changes Republicans are looking for. "The nexus for us is: revenue equals genuine entitlement eligibility changes," Mr. McConnell said.

In other words, Democrats should concede every demand the GOP has made in the last ten years and in return they'll accept the Romney/Ryan tax plan. And note that as far as I know, they still haven't offered a single specific or measurable metric on where this mystery revenue will be magically found. Perhaps from the newly discovered unicorn lair in North Korea?

However there are some clues as to how the GOP math might work. Since the legacy media won't do the calculations, it's left to the hippies. Billmon runs the numbers and finds the GOP's hidden tax plan. Shorter version is give even bigger breaks to the billionaires of the top .01% and balance the books on the backs of the top 20% which reaches all the way down to those with only 100K annual income. Which doesn't even make sense on the basis of "enlightened" self-interest.

Of course nothing is etched in stone in D.C. They could change the tax codes a million times, so one can only conclude the real agenda here is to destroy Medicare and Social Security now, (their lifelong dream), and figure out how to siphon off the extra money later.