Would Anyone Else Like To "Negotiate"?

With the House GOP in chaos, it's up to Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, to conduct serious talks with Democrats and the White House on preventing a debt default in November and a shutdown in December.

Just kidding!  McConnell wants to hold the country hostage or destroy America's economy too. Probably both.

Mitch McConnell privately wants the White House to pay this price to enact a major budget deal: Significant changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for raising the debt ceiling and funding the government. 

Several people familiar with the high-stakes fiscal negotiations said the Senate majority leader's staff is trying to drive a hard bargain in the private talks with the White House and Democratic leaders. 

McConnell is seeking a reduction in cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security recipients and new restrictions on Medicare, including limiting benefits to the rich and raising the eligibility age, several sources said. In addition, the Kentucky Republican is eager to see new policy riders enacted, including reining in the Environmental Protection Agency's clean water regulations. 

White House officials are already rejecting such entitlement changes. But the demand by McConnell showcases the major gulf that exists between the two sides as they try to avoid a potential fiscal calamity if the United States fails to raise the national debt ceiling by Nov. 5 or stumbles into a government shutdown by mid-December.

And this is McConnell's opening bid: cuts to Social Security and Medicare, raising the eligibility age, and destroying the EPA, or he collapses the economy.

Sound familiar?  It's what they wanted last time.  Obama said go to hell and they lost, but voters gave them the Senate anyway.  I guess the plan is to destroy the economy so badly that America just gives up and stops voting.