Obama blinked.

[Salty]

While Dems and Those Other Dumbasses have been working towards to same goals so quite some time...I seem to recall Bill Clinton putting up more of a tussle than Obama.
Is that accurate?

Regardless, he definitely seems to unite the two parties into one monstrosity than anyone before ever. None of the people I know voted for him seem to be aware of this.

[Cain]

BBC is reporting that US debt will likely still get downgraded.  Markets have recovered on this news, but not massively.  Basically, international capitalism is Not Amused.

And Congress has yet to vote on the deal.  The House, in its tea-tardism, could still reject this.  And if it does, there wont be time to hash out another deal until the deadline passes.

[Laughin Jude]

One reality tunnel I've been trying out lately is something like "the Republicans usually stand for what the people really running the US government actually want and the Democrats are there as a token puppet opposition that inevitably 'compromises' so the Reps can get their way on everything, always, the way they're supposed to." It's not perfect, and it's not a viewpoint I necessarily buy into, but it's a fun way of looking at things that comes out ahead way too often.

[Jenne]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/08/01/138879511/is-there-a-debt-ceiling-deal-yes-and-no
NPR seems to think there's still no deal, or it's VERY VERY tentative:

Do we have a deal? It's still a yes and no situation.

The deal the president has accepted appears likely to be acceptable to a Senate majority of 60 as well. The mood in the Senate tonight was buoyant before adjournment. They did not vote, however.

The two party caucuses will meet tomorrow morning. Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to have all or nearly all of the 51 Democrats and at least one independent (Joe Lieberman). The other independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, may be more of a question mark.

 
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is on board personally, having effectuated the breakthrough in talks with Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday and carried the ball further with Reid today. The thought is that he will bring along enough other Republican votes to reach 60, close off debate and move the plan to the House.

The House is a bigger question. Nancy Pelosi and Speaker John Boehner may have agreed with the president; their respective parties have yet to do so. Democrats are unhappy about being taken for granted, and many want to vote no on this plan.

There are no revenues in it, and all of the pain is on the spending side, with a clear sense that this round and the next round will be much the same in that regard and that every future increase in the debt ceiling will bring another major squeeze on beneficiaries of government programs. There is a sense among progressives that their agenda has been sold down the river by the president and by the majority Democrats in the Senate.

Beyond that lies a potentially greater problem: the same GOP core members, many of them freshmen, who resisted the Boehner plan for three days last week and nearly vitiated his speakership.

They want the Balanced Budget Amendment in the deal, and they want more than a vote on the amendment — they want a guarantee of its passage by two-thirds vote in House and Senate. Otherwise they won't vote for any further increase in the debt limit, period.

(One House Republican, Paul Broun of Georgia, has even proposed lowering the debt ceiling by a $1 trillion or so. And he's not even one of the freshmen. He's a family physician who is 65 and in his third term in the House.)

There will likely be an effort in the GOP conference to resist bringing the deal to come to the floor. If they can do that, they can block the deal and force the deadline to pass. There is a sizable group within the House GOP that is willing to do this, and which denies either 1) that default will happen, or 2) that default is the worst outcome from all of this.

So Boehner has a large task. And he does not have as much time as he had last week.

A quick summary of the plan:

The debt ceiling is raised by about $1 trillion now. The House and Senate enact a series of spending cuts worth about the same. Next year, the ceiling goes up another $1.8 trillion while a committee of 12 members of Congress, half from each party, negotiate another $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction.

If they don't, an automatic mechanism kicks in that would make cuts both parties find unacceptable. As we understand the deal, the second and larger increase in the debt ceiling takes place even if the Congress is still struggling with the second round of deficit reduction.

The plan also includes that "Plan B" business McConnell proposed earlier, whereby the president asks for a higher debt ceiling, Congress disapproves, the president vetoes their disapproval and the Congress fails to override his veto. I am not making this up.

[Disco Pickle]

From a CNN Money article on this:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Well, that was ugly.

And there's plenty in it for everyone to hate.

On Monday, Congress will start voting on a last-minute debt ceiling deal that would keep the country out of default and reduce deficits by at least $2.1 trillion over a decade.

Whether the deal might also avert a first-ever credit downgrade for the United States is not clear, since ratings agency Standard & Poor's indicated it was looking for a credible, bipartisan plan that had at least $4 trillion of debt reduction.

As described by the parties Sunday night, the plan includes no tax or entitlement reform measures up front, although theoretically it leaves the door open to both.

The House is set to vote before the Senate. They don't have much time. The debt ceiling must be raised by Tuesday.

A debt ceiling increase of between $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion: The framework will raise the debt ceiling immediately by $400 billion, then by another $500 billion after September.

After deep cuts are enacted by the end of the year, it will be increased by another $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion.

All told, the increases should cover the Treasury's borrowing needs until 2013.

At least $2.1 trillion in spending cuts: The framework would immediately cap domestic and defense spending, resulting in cuts of $917 billion over 10 years.

The framework then calls for more deficit reduction -- between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion worth -- to be determined by the end of this year and imposed over 10 years.

Bipartisan debt-reduction committee: That second round of deficit reduction would be proposed by a special bipartisan joint committee of Congress. The committee has until Thanksgiving to come up with its proposals and those proposals would be guaranteed by an up-or-down vote without amendment by Dec. 23.

If the committee proposes and the Congress approves between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion in cuts, the debt ceiling will be increased dollar for dollar.

If the committee deadlocks or comes up with less than $1.2 trillion in cuts, or if Congress votes down the committee's proposals, the debt ceiling will be raised by $1.2 trillion.

While it appears the committee will be free to consider entitlement and tax reform -- and dare we say it, tax hikes -- practically speaking it's more likely members would hit an impasse over these measures just as they have, oh, every other day this year.

Across-the-board cuts as trigger: If the committee deadlocks or fails to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in debt reduction, the sword of Damocles will fall on most forms of spending in the federal budget.

Specifically, as much as $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts would kick in -- evenly divided between defense and non-defense spending.

Exempt from this round of cuts, however, would be programs that aid low-income Americans, according to Democrats' fact sheets. These include Social Security, Medicaid, veterans' benefits and pensions, food stamps and Supplemental Security Income.

While Medicare would not be exempt, the framework would restrict cuts to no more than 2% of the program's cost. And the cuts that occur would not affect Medicare benefits nor would they increase seniors' costs, according to the White House fact sheet.

Required vote on balanced budget amendment: In theory, the across-the-board cuts could be avoided if instead both chambers of Congress pass a Balanced Budget amendment to the Constitution and send it to the states for ratification before the end of the year.

But for a host of reasons, political and substantive, that's very unlikely to happen. To top of page

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm struggling with this.

Objectively, this is terrible and will be bad for, well, almost everyone who isn't already rich.

On the other hand, this will put me alot closer to being in that category. Those cuts to military spending are going to translate into the Navy spending ALOT more money on using our services, and the Captain has made no secret that he now considers me one of the indispensable people in the company along with his partner and our chief engineer. If this goes through, it probably IMMEDIATELY adds somewhere between 20K and 30K a year to my income and there's a very real possibility that it leads to us taking over operations on additional ships and me becoming the budget and supply officer for the whole company with a percentage share in addition to my salary.

Part of me feels like I'm becoming what I used to hate, but the other part of me thinks I've worked my ass off long enough that I shouldn't feel bad about cashing in, even in these circumstances.

[Cain]

The House passed the bill.  It's a done deal.

Interesting factoid from the BBC

House Democrats were evenly split on the legislation - 95 for and 95 against - while 174 Republicans voted for the measure and 66 opposed it.

So much for Tea Party obstructionism.

Looks like individual payments under Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare wont be affected.

Still, you can't stop Judgement Day.  It's been pushed back to 2013, but who is to say this whole dog and pony show wont happen again?  And this time, it only barely scrapes in, on the very final day.  Next time around, it may not work out.

[Fast Eddy]

I really wanted to see Obama take the 14th Amendment route. It would lead to a bunch of pants-shitting from the Tea Party and Obama would likely never hear the end of it, but the debt ceiling has to go. There should never be any sort of law that has a fail-deadly effect should it not be renewed/revised/etc.

Still kinda holding out hope for somebody to filibuster the bill in the Senate. If they can hold the floor for (I believe) 12 hours, that should force the President's hand and hopefully get rid of the debt ceiling entirely, and make sure that the U.S.'s credit rating isn't threatened by economic hostage taking.

Hopefully Bernie Sanders gets recognized and decides to turn some tables. I don't know all of the procedural rules of the Senate, so it's probably just a pipe dream, but I would love to watch the Republicans lose their shit as one rogue Senator makes executive intervention to prevent default necessary, and removes all incentive for the Senate Democrats to vote yes on that bill.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what all's going on in this bill. I'm reading it now but it'll probably take the rest of the day before I can have a half-decent understanding of what's going where and to whom.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c112:./temp/~c112UzZ5oT

[Cain]

The 14th Ammendment route would've been hilarious, agreed.  Unfortunately, less opportunity for cuts Obama wanted to make anyway.

The BBC have a roundup of the international press reaction to the deal, which is quite interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14371366

Beijing's China Daily: "The agreement [on raising the US debt ceiling] is likely to avert default by Washington and it certainly is a relief for China... We still cannot rule out the possibility of a downgrade of the US credit rating if Washington fails to come up with a long-term and balanced solution to address its debt problem... For policy makers in Beijing, seeking alternative ways to invest the massive foreign exchange reserves and to reduce its rapid accumulation remain the crucial challenges." (Interview with Chen Daofu, director, Policy Research Centre, Financial Research Institute, State Council Development Research Centre)

Moskovskiye Novosti: "America has changed its mind about having a Judgment Day... But the obvious inability to reach an agreement that was demonstrated by political forces in the US has had an equally damaging effect on the country... The image of the country as a responsible borrower has suffered most." (Article by Denis Voroshilov and Igor Kryuchkov)

Sueddeutsche Zeitung: "State bankruptcy has been avoided, but the compromise announced by US President Barack Obama is flawed from an economic point of view. It does not resolve any of the real budgetary problems and some of its elements are even harmful to the economy."

Basically, International Capital Is Not Amused (again).

[Doktor Howl]

I'm struggling with this.

Objectively, this is terrible and will be bad for, well, almost everyone who isn't already rich.

On the other hand, this will put me alot closer to being in that category. Those cuts to military spending are going to translate into the Navy spending ALOT more money on using our services, and the Captain has made no secret that he now considers me one of the indispensable people in the company along with his partner and our chief engineer. If this goes through, it probably IMMEDIATELY adds somewhere between 20K and 30K a year to my income and there's a very real possibility that it leads to us taking over operations on additional ships and me becoming the budget and supply officer for the whole company with a percentage share in addition to my salary.

Part of me feels like I'm becoming what I used to hate, but the other part of me thinks I've worked my ass off long enough that I shouldn't feel bad about cashing in, even in these circumstances.

You have nothing to do with the decision.  If it profits, you, what are you expected to do?  Tear your hair out, quit your job, and wear a hair shirt?

Fuck that.  Take what you can get.  There's no moral component to this.

[Lord Cataplanga]

I'm struggling with this.

Objectively, this is terrible and will be bad for, well, almost everyone who isn't already rich.

On the other hand, this will put me alot closer to being in that category. Those cuts to military spending are going to translate into the Navy spending ALOT more money on using our services, and the Captain has made no secret that he now considers me one of the indispensable people in the company along with his partner and our chief engineer. If this goes through, it probably IMMEDIATELY adds somewhere between 20K and 30K a year to my income and there's a very real possibility that it leads to us taking over operations on additional ships and me becoming the budget and supply officer for the whole company with a percentage share in addition to my salary.

Part of me feels like I'm becoming what I used to hate, but the other part of me thinks I've worked my ass off long enough that I shouldn't feel bad about cashing in, even in these circumstances.

You have nothing to do with the decision.  If it profits, you, what are you expected to do?  Tear your hair out, quit your job, and wear a hair shirt?

Fuck that.  Take what you can get.  There's no moral component to this.

TITCM. After all, you did not cause this state of affairs, so it's silly to feel bad about taking advantage from it.

Also, look who is back

The Tea Party held America hostage during "the debt debate"? No, you fool, you idiot; fucking rich people did it. The Tea Party is just some shit they cooked up to keep you busy, to keep you fuming at each other while they steal your tooth fairy money and grandma's dentures. Every policy that you abhor and mistakenly ascribe to the ersatz conservative revanchism of the so-called tea-party movement is a willful policy of oligarchic centralism with the end goal of extracting every last red cent from every last human being on the earth. You are both the miner and the mine. Strap the gaslight to your forehead, bub, and stick your head right back in where the sun don't shine.

ETA: more awesome

Let me explain something to you.  "The Social Safety Net" is not a benefit or an entitlement; it is a bribe.  It is a package of bribes offered to fictitious, created entity called "The Middle Class" in order to entice them away from any sense of solidarity with the poor.  Its origin is anti-Communism.  And it has been very effective.  Middle-class entitelements, from Social Security to the mortgage deduction, have kept you poor slobs in line for seventy years, toiling away, building the foundations and walls of your own prison. ...

[Adios]

I'm struggling with this.

Objectively, this is terrible and will be bad for, well, almost everyone who isn't already rich.

On the other hand, this will put me alot closer to being in that category. Those cuts to military spending are going to translate into the Navy spending ALOT more money on using our services, and the Captain has made no secret that he now considers me one of the indispensable people in the company along with his partner and our chief engineer. If this goes through, it probably IMMEDIATELY adds somewhere between 20K and 30K a year to my income and there's a very real possibility that it leads to us taking over operations on additional ships and me becoming the budget and supply officer for the whole company with a percentage share in addition to my salary.

Part of me feels like I'm becoming what I used to hate, but the other part of me thinks I've worked my ass off long enough that I shouldn't feel bad about cashing in, even in these circumstances.

You have nothing to do with the decision.  If it profits, you, what are you expected to do?  Tear your hair out, quit your job, and wear a hair shirt?

Fuck that.  Take what you can get.  There's no moral component to this.

Completely agree.

[Cain]

IOZ seems...rather incensed.

I haven't seen him this angry since 2006, in fact.

[Adios]

IOZ seems...rather incensed.

I haven't seen him this angry since 2006, in fact.

I don't know who that is, but it sure looks like a fun button to push daily!

[Cain]

I'm going to buck conventional board wisdom here and state that Obama, in fact, played a blinder.

First of all, I assume Obama is a centrist/right-leaning but socially liberal corporatist.  Therefore, it was his aim all along to slash public spending (his bailout was too botched to be anything but purposefully so).

Secondly, by playing "chicken" with the Republicans, he has sunk their chances of 2012 Presidential victory.  Check the stats

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/us/politics/05poll.html?_r=1&hp

Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama and the Democrats, the poll found.

The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations

When the blame game goes down in 2012 for how shit the economy is, it will be the GOP who will shoulder the blame.