Quite the banner day for Democrats…

Despite polls showing that the public is overwhelmingly on board with raising taxes on millionaires, they promptly rolled over on their backs and piddled on their bellies when push came to shove.

In what would be a major concession, President Obama and Senate Democrats will drop their insistence that a surtax on millionaires pay for extending the payroll tax cut, a Democratic source tells CNN. This would be part of a new Democratic offer.

Meanwhile Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has decided to apply for the position of wingman in granny-snuffing sociopath Paul Ryan’s fiscal slasher posse:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who has been castigated by Democrats and hailed by Republicans for his plan to privatize Medicare, will on Thursday unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program.

Working with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the Wisconsin Republican is developing a framework that would offer traditional, government-run Medicare as an option for future retirees along with a variety of private plans.

Seniors would still receive a set amount of money from the government to buy insurance, as they would under the Medicare proposal Ryan included in the budget blueprint that passed the House last year. But the new approach would let that subsidy, known as premium support, rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies — creating more protection for seniors and saving potentially far less in the budget.

Because you know what would save a shit-ton of money for the government?

Allowing a third party middle-man whose business model is built upon obscene profits to collect “premium support” dollars from the government while delaying and denying treatment to the “covered” seniors on whom the clock is quickly running out.

What could possibly go wrong?

(Image courtesy of Married To The Sea)