Right after Peter Orszag left the White House, there was a moment of tension between himself and some of his former colleagues when he took to the New York Times to propose a tax cut compromise that the administration doesn’t support. The idea was to extend all the Bush tax cuts temporarily, but only as part of a grand bargain to tackle comprehensive tax reform in two years. Democrats worried that Republicans would just ignore the caveat and put Democrats in a corner by adopting the “Orszag plan” as their own.
Here’s freshly minted Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) to me and a few reporters this afternoon. He supports a temporary extension of all the tax cuts “Because Peter Orszag is a very serious person who had the eye and the ear of the President… I take him very seriously. I’m pro-Orszag.”