Sen. Kent Conrad

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.) will brief Democratic leaders on a budget that significantly raises government tax revenues in order to reduce the deficit, according to Senate sources. The plan will balance the burden of reducing the deficit roughly 50-50 between increasing tax revenues and cutting government spending, sources said.... Conrad said last week that his budget plan would cut the deficit by more than $4 trillion over 10 years. Given a one-to-one ratio of new tax revenues to spending cuts, tax increases and the elimination of special tax breaks would total more than $2 trillion.

As Greg Sargent quips , it seems like Sen. Kent Conrad is "laboring under the delusion that 'compromise' is supposed to involve both sides giving up roughly equivalent concessions." The details aren't entirely clear yet, so there could be some problematic cuts, but perhaps Conrad could at least pull the whole negotiations back onto saner footing

He has Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) approval. Sanders has written an open letter to President Obama, demanding that "[a]t least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions." As of Tuesday, nearly 103,000 people from all 50 states and the District of Columbia had signed on to Sanders' letter. His original idea, a surtax on millionaires, was rejected by the committee, under the objections of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL).

Conrad's proposal is also getting praise from activists. Campaign for America's Future co-director Roger Hickey released this statement:

"The Conrad proposal is the first strong Democratic proposal that has come out of these negotiations. Of course the devil is in the details, but 50-50 could be a fair deal for Americans. Let me be clear about what a fair deal would include: No deal without the rich and big corporations sharing in the sacrifice. No deal that would harm the essential programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. No deal that takes more out of the programs for middle income and poor Americans than it takes from tax breaks, loopholes and havens for the rich and the big corporations, and no deal that undermines the economic recovery. "We encourage Senator Conrad, the President and all the negotiators to stand up for the American people and not shift the burden of the deficit down to the people who need government help the most including sick, elderly and disabled people."

Hopefully Conrad isn't too late and isn't coming to the table with too little. But at least the Senate is setting Republicans up to look as craven as they actually are. Again, back to Greg Sargent:

Republican opposition to any kind of revenue increase as part of the deficit deal has grown so implacable that Dems will now hold a Senate vote tomorrow on the basic idea that millionaires and billionaires should help contribute to fixing our deficit. It’s not a vote on any specific proposal to hike taxes or end tax breaks. Rather, it’s a vote that puts each Senator on record on the general question of whether the rich should sacrifice in sevice of deficit reduction.

It's a sense of the Senate resolution that will force Republicans to declare their fealty to Grover Norquist, which they will probably do, most of them anyway, since Norquist is their true messiah. Which brings us back to whether there's any hope that a seemingly rational plan like Conrad's can prevail in this debate.