Hello!? {{Tap, tap}} Remember us? The voters?

Greg Sargent tells us what Obama has been up to behind our backs (not really) lately:

Multiple reports this morning tell us that President Obama is going around GOP leaders by privately courting Republican lawmakers in an effort to win their support for a grand deficit reduction bargain. The New York Times reports that Obama has spoken by phone with GOP Senators and has invited a dozen of them over for dinner tonight.

It’s not hard to figure out what Obama is telling these Senators: He’s telling them what his actual deficit reduction plan contains — a mix of real entitlement cuts and new revenues.

If you want to understand what this is really about, go back to Ezra Klein’s interview with an unnamed GOP Senator, in which the lawmaker professed himself surprised to hear that Obama had offered Chained CPI on Social Security, along with other real entitlement cuts, in exchange for new revenues via the closing of loopholes enjoyed by the wealthy and corporations.

In short, Obama will tell all these Senators that he’s offering them what they want, i.e., serious cuts in retirement programs, in exchange for less in new revenues, and that this is actually a very good deal for them.

“Here’s my lunch money!  Oh, and here’s the pin number to my bank account.  Heck, why not just take the pin for everyone’s bank account!”

Hey, I voted for Rocky Anderson.