A plan, a plan!  We have a plan, we just aren’t telling you what it is, not just yet.

And just because you and I don’t know what’s in it doesn’t mean that this budget plan from the Group of Six might not be a solid foundation for building a way to get the nation’s budget out of the ditch, and maybe get support for a debt ceiling increase before the government defaults on its loans in two weeks.

Today, a bipartisan group (or Gang) of six senators that has been meeting privately for months looking for a way out of the federal budget quicksand briefed Senate colleagues on a plan to cut about $4 trillion dollars from the budget deficit over the next 10 years.  The plan is said to be similar to the one presented by the president’s deficit study commission, and calls for spending cuts and tax increases (yeah, I said it—tax increases).  A number of Republicans and Democrats came out of the meeting with positive things to say about this effort.

President Obama praised the plan, noting that it’s “consistent” with the approach he’s been pushing in recent negotiations.  Now, that may be all it takes to doom the plan in the eyes of Obama-haters, but there’s still hope.  This plan will be there waiting for both houses to pick up after the GOP’s “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan fails to win approval; it wouldn’t be ready to be implemented right away, but could show enough good faith for enough Republicans to do what has to be done right away—raise the debt ceiling by August 2 to prevent government default and all the consequences that will bring to the economy, and to you and me.

Just for good measure, on that proposal for a balanced budget amendment: Dahlia Lithwick and Doug Kendall make an interesting case that amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget, in the way that Tea Party members are proposing to do, would actually “crash headlong into the very constitutional principles the Tea Party purports to cherish” and that if successful could hamstring the nation’s ability to defend itself.  Here’s hoping they’re still capable of seeing the irony of this situation.