It’s not just you. The GOP has just had their lunches eaten in front of them and playground dirt rubbed into their shorts by Barack Obama. The final deal (assuming it’s not shot down in a suicide pact between the House progressives and tea partiers)(!) protects SS and Medicare, makes reductions in DOD base spending, actually increases spending for Pell grants and allows Obama to put the final stake through the Bush tax cuts unless Congress takes other action to raise revenue prior to December 2012. Best of all, it allows the President to raise the debt ceiling sufficiently to take us past the next election, and it guarantees a vote in Congress for a BBA, but does not require passage.
It also provides “triggers” for enforcement of spending reductions which don’t begin until 2013, split 50/50 between domestic and defense (again SS, Medicare beneficiaries and low income programs are exempt from any cuts).
Any provision in this deal which requires a definite level of spending reduction is reversible by the next Congress, including the big thing that has progressives freaking out, the cuts that are allowed to Medicare, capped and limited to Medicare providers. (By the way, Congress adjusts Medicare provider payment schedules every year, usually preventing decreases that are scheduled by previous law.)
When the dust clears, this will be recognized as a win for the Obama administration. The Greenwalds and Der Trihses will remember a “sell out” by Obama, but they will always want their ponies, and there’s nothing Daddy can do to make them happy otherwise. The vast center of the electorate is already widely united in their buyer’s remorse for those freshman Tea Partiers in Congress, and are unlikely to get any happier by November 2012.
I despise this attitude. It’s the same scorched earth attitude I detest so much in the Tea Party. It’s childish. Refusing to participate because things might not go exactly like you want them is the behavior of a spoiled four year old girl who flips over the board because her brother put a hotel down when they were playing Monopoly. This attitude is why we came so close to not reaching a deal in the first place.
Not trying to “teach anyone”. I’m just disgusted enough to say that the voters are going to get what they asked for. I have a decent job and assets such that I wouldn’t have to work again the rest of my life if that job went away. In other words, I got mine, you are on your own.
Obama bends over again and is shocked(!) to have been reamed again.
Don’t worry, I’m sure that the next time it comes up they totally won’t take hostages. There’s ONE reason you don’t give in to terrorists. Obama seems to have never learned that lesson.
Anyone want to guess whether or not the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy get extended again 12/31/2012?
I hope you’re right. But it still looks like an unnecessary drag on the economy, especially as unemployment benefits are going to start going back to 20–26 weeks well before there’s any chance of the job situation improving to the point where that makes any sense.
Also, taking the debt ceiling hostage and refusing to compromise until the last possible minute is just going to be something that’s normal now.
The Democrats need to start getting the message out now that they agreed to make a lot of unpopular cuts in order to keep Social Security and Medicare intact, while the Republicans agreed to make a bunch of unpopular cuts in order to keep the rich from paying a single dime in additional taxes. If they get that message to stick, rebuild some enthusiasm in their base, and perhaps subtly exploit tea party overreach, they might have a strategy that can survive a stagnant economy.
That part of the plan is working, too. They’ve pushed so far to the right that Obama looks like a leftist to a lot of people who just shrug their shoulders and say “meh, they’re probably equally bad, so whatareyougonnado?”
If they were pushing for a complete abolition of all federal taxes and programs, for instance, would you have thought the “best law” would have been “only” a crippling balanced budget amendment?
ETA: that said there are times when both sides’ hatred of an outcome does speak to its unanimous suckitude. Kelo, for instance.
I haven’t yet made up my mind as to whether this is a win or not. However, the above does worry me somewhat. The Dems have already had the chance to end those cuts, and chose not to. Why would you think that next time they will refuse to negotiate that away again? It’s going to be awfully hard for a lot of members of congress to swallow voting in favour of a tax increase (and that is exactly what the Republicans will call it) a month or two before an election.
Anyway, Ludovic, I really don’t see this as some “greater plan” for the arch conservatives. It’s not like this thing is going to get healthcare repealed. The deal is actually fairly minor if you think about it. (Congress has had similar budget moves for decades) The only thing that is remarkable is why the damn thing took so long. The cacophony about the thing erupted because too many people, including yourself, were apparently expecting a pony for Christmas.
And? Unless you’re looking at over 50% turnover rate in the House (Unprecedented, I’ll bet) you’ll have a bunch of folks putting their necks on the line to end them. They didn’t before, you think they’re going to this time?
No, the cacophony was because something routine became another hostage situation for the Democrats to bend over on. But I’m sure next year’s budget won’t involve further chipping away at social programs…you want to put these GOPBaggers in a bad position, make them choose between further deconstruction and funding the military.
That’s actually exactly what I’m saying. The deal itself isn’t a big deal , but the process got FUBAR. I’m in no way happy about that, but the deal itself? Not that bad.
I don’t trust the Tea Party Republicans to not do it again, either, but I think that particular tactic of “don’t negotiate with the other side!” won’t necessarily endure. It may happen again, but it won’t be SOP. Tactics like this develop fractures in parties (remember McCain calling the Tea Party “hobbits”?) and fractured parties don’t win too many elections.
If I understand the deal right, Congress can vote for an extension and Obama can veto it, and unlike December 2010, it won’t be attached to any other deals except this current one. It’s provisional, of course, on the so-called Super Congress committee coming up with other revenue increasers (i.e. closing loopholes, eliminating subsidies, etc.), but it gets treated as a standalone if they fail to do that.
Also too, it’ll be done after the 2012 elections, not before.
Here is another take on this whole mess…it’s from Talking Points Memo, so you on the right should gird your loins, or whatever it is you do before looking at progressive sites.
Can anyone seriously believe that the Republicans will pass on the chance to use this ‘tax increase’ as an election issue? Unless they vote on it by the end of the year, the cuts will expire. If they do it (say) in September or October, they can paint half the democratic members as conspiring to massively increase taxes, and thereby make some hay. If they wait until after the elections, it’s just another vote in a lame duck congress. Why on earth would they wait until after November?
If the Republicans really wait until December before bringing this up, wouldn’t that be rank incompetence?
Sure, they can bring it up. And the Democrats can come up with a bill that they support that only extends the tax breaks for income under $250,000 a year, and they can run on competing bills. Raising taxes on the rich is a popular option for addressing the debt.
Meanwhile the Republicans can argue with themselves whether they want to gut Social Security to keep the tax breaks on income over $250,000, whether they want to gut Social Security and Medicare to keep all the tax breaks, and get rid of all taxes on capital gains and all corporate taxes, as well as a bunch of amendments to the bill to deny tax breaks to (illegal) immigrants, mosques, abortion providers, etc.
It’s absurd that they were able to paint it as Obama raising taxes, the first time it rolled around. It was never Obama raising the taxes; it was Bush (or rather, Bush’s congress). But if they were able to get folks to buy that line once, sadly, they’ll probably be able to get folks to buy it again.