SO LET'S BRING IT TO A VOTE AND ENACT IT:

The Democratic Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee announced Tuesday that he will introduce a version of the deficit reduction plan devised by former senator Alan Simpson and former White House official Erskine Bowles instead of a partisan Democratic budget.

But Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told reporters that he will not ask senators to vote on the proposal, which would slash deficits by $5.4 trillion over the next decade through spending cuts and higher taxes, acknowledging that the political landscape will most likely not allow members of either party to take the tough votes the plan would require until after the election.

He said the proposal represented a "middle-ground, consensus solution to the country's fiscal imbalance."

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