TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Keith Hennessey weighs in on the President’s “grand bargain”:

The President has stressed his willingness to include long-term entitlement reforms, including raising Medicare’s eligibility age to 67 and, reportedly, a correction to the CPI. Both are good policy changes, and both are elements of Bowles-Simpson. The President argues that Republicans should, in exchange, be willing to agree to the tax increases he proposes – both a significant increase in total tax revenues, and specific policies like higher marginal rates for “the rich.”

But the effects on beneficiaries of the Medicare eligibility increase, and the budget savings that would result from such a policy change, are significantly mitigated by the existence of ObamaCare subsidies for near retirees. This is nowhere nearly as big of a “give” as it would have been before the new health laws.