Ezra Klein:
Why Republicans like Simpson-Bowles: The Obama administration doesn’t like the defense cuts or Social Security reforms in Simpson-Bowles, and they’re skeptical that the tax reform process could really generate as much revenue as the document promises. So their thinking was that they could work off of the Simpson-Bowles proposal and come out with something better. That’s pretty much what they tried to do in April. But because that plan had Obama’s name on it, it was dismissed as a liberal nonstarter….
Whether an effort to revive Simpson-Bowles would actually mean that the plan passes or would just mean that the debate gets recentered and Republicans have to take the blame for killing the proposal is anyone’s guess. But neither outcome is a bad one for the Democrats. Or for the country.
It depends what "Simpson-Bowles" is: a good many of the elements would be really bad policy...
