Joe Biden’s Gang of Six has reconstituted itself and resumed negotiations. Yesterday outlines of a compromise agreement were made public; Ezra Klein comments. Among other things, Ezra says “The plan also appears to build the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000 into the baseline.” We don’t know details, however.

Steve M says the plan is DOA in Grover Norquist’s House. See also Steve Benen, “When the Gang of Six Meets the Gang of 435.” It’s way doubtful any form of this plan will pass before the August 2 deadline.

Some news stories say that President Obama praised the current Gang of Six proposal, but Steve Benen says that’s not exactly what happened. Instead, the President praised the G6 for making progress, then added,

“So here’s where we stand. We have a Democratic President and administration that is prepared to sign a tough package that includes both spending cuts, modifications to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare that would strengthen those systems and allow them to move forward, and would include a revenue component. We now have a bipartisan group of senators who agree with that balanced approach. And we’ve got the American people who agree with that balanced approach.”

This sounds like a message to House Repubicans to stop standing in the way. But I doubt they’ll listen.

So where does that leave us? Earlier this week Bill Clinton said that if it were up to him, he’d evoke the 14th Amendment and raise the debt ceiling himself. I’m not sure how constitutional scholars feel about that, though. And I take it the White House really doesn’t want to go there.

A lot of editorialists are still assuring us that of course the debt ceiling will be raised, but I’m having doubts.

See also:

“Corporate America’s Sunshine Patriots.” “… as of last week, as per the website Zero Hedge and data analysts Capital IQ, 29 public companies — including Bank of America, JP Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, GE and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway — each have more cash on hand than the U.S. Treasury.”

“Why Can’t We Dump the Debt Ceiling?”