Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to introduce a Democratic budget, allow amendments, and allow a vote on final passage. He wanted the American people to see how their elected representatives planned to spend their money. But Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had other plans.

Yesterday, Conrad held a 2:45 PM press conference where he released a Democrat budget virtually identical to the Bowles-Simpson plan that President Obama rejected in 2010. Conrad promised that he would hold a mark up hearing on the budget where Senators could offer amendments and the committee could vote on final approval. But this did not sit will with Reid. A real Senate debate about budget priorities would expose how radical Obama’s spending plans are and force the president to reject his own fiscal commission plan again. Not that the Bowles-Simpson is perfect either. It contains no spending cuts beyond the spending caps Congress set in last August’s debt limit deal, and it raises taxes by $2.6 trillion.