Sunday, July 31, 2011

So now that there's a debt ceiling deal, can we finally start being bored to tears by a brand new issue?

There's a deal!

Ending a perilous stalemate, President Barack Obama announced agreement Sunday night with Republican congressional leaders on a compromise to avoid the nation's first-ever financial default. The deal would cut more than $2 trillion from federal spending over a decade.


Greg Sargent says it's a big win for Republicans:

GOP on verge of huge, unprecedented political victory

Anything can happen, but it apppears the GOP is on the verge of pulling off a political victory that may be unprecedented in American history. Republicans may succeed in using the threat of a potential outcome that they themselves acknowledged would lead to national catastrophe as leverage to extract enormous concessions from Democrats, without giving up anything of any significance in return.


Hooray! Now maybe we can see something different at the top of Memeorandum for a change! Y'know, after a few days of parsing and recriminating and speculating on who won or who lost or who's just being a sore loser or really ought to get on board and stop whining that everything isn't perfect.

Me, I'm not even going to bother figuring out what was in the "deal." These things always seem to turn out a lot worse than we thought a month after they happen. More at Memeorandum.

UPDATE - Krugman hates it, so it must be good. The New York Times hates it, too. Doubleplusgood!

I reiterate what I wrote earlier: we don't really know what's in this thing. Plus, all the people noting that promised future spending cuts aren't actually spending cuts at all are absolutely right. We're giving something up front for a promise of something later.

But, again, gotta wait and see.

6 comments:

  1. [...] jokers were always going to raise the debt ceiling. We all knew that. I’m with Trog on this one, these things always seem to turn out worse than we thought a month after they happen. [...]

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  2. I think gun stores, ammunition manufacturers, Dole, Del Monte, and Libby's are the big winners.

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  3. Welcome to the grand illusion (of spending cuts)...

    Apparently though my pessimism isn't contagious. Lance likes the deal. Donald Douglas is happy because The New York Times isn't. And Backyard Conservative says the Tea Party won the deal....

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  4. $76Bn/year less spending than "baseline"--which rises at ~7%/year.

    Gummint debt rises, private debt sinks (which explains the lousy economy).

    Yah, that'll fix it.

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  5. It seems this deal is universally disliked - is this the best deal that could have made??

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  6. [...] the cold light of mid afternoon, I have to agree with Troglopundit on this [...]

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