From David Brooks, in a Q&A with Ezra Klein about his column today, in which he wrote (inaccurately) that the White House doesn’t have a proposal to avert the sequester, “let alone one that is politically plausible”:
What would be far enough, in your view? What would you like to see them offer?
My fantasy package, and I’m not running for office, would include a progressive consumption tax, and it would have chained CPI, and it would have a pretty big means-test of Medicare. I’d direct you to Yuval Levin’s piece in the Times a few days ago, which seemed sensible.
I guess I shouldn’t complain about this. I mean, props to Brooks for admitting that he went overboard, and props for being willing to talk to Ezra about it in a good natured way. Still, I have to chuckle when he complains about Obama not proposing a “politically plausible” plan, and then offers up an alternative that includes a progressive consumption tax, something that Republicans have been unrelentingly opposed to for decades in any reasonable form. Democrats aren’t all that keen on the idea either. I think we really need to have a little chat about just what “politically plausible” really means.
