Looking at the debt deal, it's actually not that bad

It could have been worse. SS, Medicare and Medicaid are exempted from serious cuts for now. Also, the debt ceiling issue gets pushed after 2012...the issue is dead until after the 2012 elections.

SS and Medicare also appear to be exempted from serious cuts even if the trigger kicks in. Programs that help veterans and the poor are exempted from the trigger as well. This is excellent news.

I would have liked to see additional revenue, but that obviously would have never been agreed to. Another question is that this committee still seems a little bit mysterious.

But if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, this is actually a decent deal.

In other words, by doing nothing.

Not exactly a bad thing.

What are they seeing that you don't or vice versa?

I saw a post on the initial details of the deal and I'm not seeing serious cuts to SS, Medicare and Medicaid. It also appears that defense spending is on the table.

just by putting them in the mix as they are.

They think that we should get everything we want, in defiance of the realities of a Republican House. Like it or not, some people really do want Obama to govern as an imperial president, the Democratic Bush.

out strongly against anything less than a perfectly progressive bill. He has the luxury of a strong liberal region. Unfortunately for most of us, many of our democratic representatives cannot do the same. They wouldn't survive an election to fight another day given the shit storm of money from corporations to take them out. Citizens United will make it that much harder for most Dems in 2012. That is the reality.

I agree, but it might not make it out of the House since it's disliked by the Teabaggers, CBC, and Progressive Caucus.

They could end up agreeing to a last-minute, one-line, clean debt limit bill after all of this, back to what they should have done in the first place.

SS and Medicare will e be on the block. Obama said today when the special congressional commission
gets to work this fall, everything will be on the table. He means entitlements. The additional 1.4 trillion cuts
will come from somewhere.

He wants entitlements reformed. What exactly do you think he means?

I'm fairly confident neither of those issues will be passed. Don't worry for now. Keep the pressure up, but this is a decent (not good, imo, but OK) deal.

And Medicare gets whacked. Medicare was going to be the issue to get the House back.

The pressure will be on the Dems more than ever this fall. Dammed if they do and dammed
if they don't . I think the pukes just checkmated our party.

that the deal that they do reach will actually do very little with regards to SS, Medicare, or tax increases. There will only be very small concessions on each side at the most, but they'll still come to some sort of consensus, as Democrats won't want to see entitlement cuts and Republicans won't want to see tax increases.

Congress has to find 1.4 trillion in cuts or the penalties kick in. And one of those penalties is cuts to Medicare.
At that point, the Democrats lose their strategy to argue that they will protect Medicare while the pukes want to kill it.

And to avoid the trigger, they have to come up with that 1.4 trillion in cuts. Where will they find them?

There really are only two places left to squeeze any money out of government now, the Pentagon and entitlements.
Most of that 1.4 trillion will come from these two areas because that is all thats left to cut or the trigger
kicks in and they both get cut anyway. How do we win under either scenario?

I think the Republicans got us coming and going.

Defense cuts are the trigger to get the Republicans to vote.

The cuts to Medicare would be to the providers only. But that is a sham because providers would
then cut services to recipients.

"The spending cuts "should be a sword of equal sharpness and strength hanging over each party's head,"
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer told CNN's "State of the Union."

Lawmakers said the triggered cuts would include defense spending dear to Republicans, and Medicare, which is
important to Democrats. The idea is to pressure both parties to come to terms on future cuts."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/usa-debt-enforcement-idUSN1E76U0GH20110801">U.S. lawmakers reach into the past on budget deal

Now what do you think the Commission is going to do? I'll give you a tiny little hint, it's far more likely the prescription drug limits would be chosen, because the people on the Commission will likely have something to lose if they cut Medicare. It's not going to be full of teabaggers who are insane.

Entitlements are safe for now, defense is trimmed, it's raised past 2012, and the Bush tax cuts will (barring hostage taking) expire at the end of 2012. I still don't like the idea of cutting domestic spending during a recession (it's way too risky in a shaky economy), but considering the circumstances and what's in the deal, I'll certainly take it. It's better than I was expecting.

What it looks like is everybody who made big promises they can't keep are going to wash their hands of it, vote six people for the dirty job of actually choosing the cuts. You say there are these exemptions, but what is left on the table for that committee? What's likely to get the ax?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1626446

Read Obama's words....there will be more cuts then.

Nope. They are only exempt from the trigger.

They are certainly on the table after the Commission reports their "suggestions".

One can only hope there is some significant tax reform (i.e raising rates on the highest earners beyond what the expiration of the Bush tax cuts calls for) if we are "reforming" Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

Bingo, problem solved; Medicare and SS saved from any cuts whatsoever.

and then discovering that he's made an appointment to have him "have a look" at the other one.

The Bush tax cuts disappear
The Iraq and Afghanistan drawdowns continue
The doctor fix goes away
The Payroll tax and FICA holidays stay dead.

Black ink as far as the eye can see.

its actually pretty good. If you look at the repug agenda going in to the thing, I think they got about as much as they got in the last budget deal; just about exactly nothing.

Shutting them out is one thing, of course, getting a good agenda pushed through on its own merits is another. If we had a different congress, we wouldn't have to deal with this crap, and the things that could be done would be much better.

are just going to let the Bush tax cuts expire? They will drum up another crisis and take the country hostage again to get what they want. After all it worked this time, why not try it again?

The tax cuts also going to expire in an election year so the Republicans will campaign on the fear of a big tax rise and force Obama to admit that he will let them expire (which Obama will be loath to do because he doesn't want to be seen as a tax increaser) or force him to say that he won't let them expire, in which case they will hound him to do something about it before the date they're set to expire, during the election. I have no faith that he'll stay strong on it under those circumstances.