Did Tom Coburn just quadruple the debt ceiling ransom?

Tom Coburn, who recently withdrew from the Senate Gang of Six that was purporting to negotiate a comprehensive tax reform/deficit reduction deal along the lines of Bowles-Simpson, deserves some kudos for saying with increasing clarity that any such deal will have to include increasing tax revenue -- a point the GOP leadership and over 90% of the rank-and-file are unwilling to concede.

In an interview with the WSJ's Jerry Seib posted today, however (below), Coburn also sets the bar for a deal to raise the debt ceiling at $4 trillion in deficit reduction -- that is, a deal on the scale of President Obama's proposal, albeit obviously tilted far more to the right. The working media assumption, prompted by an intimation from Joe Biden, has been that a debt ceiling deal might block out about $1 trillion in cuts over ten years, and/or institute triggers mandating cuts if reductions don't hit targets at various points. 



At about 14:25, Seib asks whether a debt ceiling deal can take the country "some way down the path" toward deficit reduction.  Coburn's response (my emphasis):