Posted on 08/02/2011 9:33:21 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
High-stakes negotiations force people to reveal what they really care about, and in the 11th-hour deal to stave off a federal financial default, President Obama and congressional Democrats and Republicans each made clear their top priorities.
For Republicans, it was preventing any tax increase to upper-income families.
For Democrats, it was ensuring no cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and a handful of other programs that aid the elderly and the poor.
And for Obama, it was getting a deal that would end the threat of an economy-shaking default until after the 2012 presidential election.
None of the key players was willing to go all out to actually solve the nation's long-term financial problems. As a result, the deal doesn't.
"In reaching this agreement, each political party yielded to the other party's highest-priority political and ideological interest," and fails to resolve the country's long-term budget problems, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Monday.
Indeed, for all the high-stakes political drama and the apparent damage the months-long debate has inflicted on the political standing of both parties and the president, the compromise — what White House officials refer to as a "lowest common denominator" deal — achieves relatively little in the short term.
Over the next two years, the final compromise comes very close to the initial request by Obama — a "clean" debt ceiling increase that allows the government to pay its bills and does nothing else.
In the government's 2012 fiscal year, the cut would be $21 billion, or less than 1% of a nearly $3.7-trillion federal budget,..
The bulk of the projected $2.1 trillion or more of cuts does not start kicking in until after the next election when a future Congress and president could choose to rewrite the plan — a point that many conservatives have worried about.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
How’s it feeeel to be held hostage to a ship about to be committed to the deep? .. in a “bipartisan” fashion, no less.
and the band played on..
Let the chair shuffling exercise begin..
The Senate is voting.
All the more reason to win the election next year.
People keep writing these articles about how it doesn’t fix the problem, as if we don’t understand. You can’t fix the problem until you address entitlements, baseline budgeting, etc., and you can’t address that while the intransigent party of bankruptcy - the Democrats - are in office. Get rid of them in 2012, and let’s return the country to solvency beginning in 2013.
It’s like being trapped in a lifeboat with someone who’s adding water.
But..but...we avoided default, right? Right? :0)
And what exactly did the democrats do with the budget when they had the House, the Senate and the Presidency for a couple of years? Hmm? why doesn’t the times mention that? Why didn’t the dems go “all out” then?
“For Democrats, it was ensuring no cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and a handful of other programs that aid the elderly and the poor. “
Big. Fat. Lie.
For Democrats, it was about HANDOUTS TO INSURE THEIR CONSTITUENTS continue to vote for them.
Zero was the FIRST to declare SS was on the chopping block if a deal wasn’t made. And his OBAMACARE cuts medicaid by billions.
I hammered the Rep, yesterday. Today, this went to the Senators:
“Senator, you should be ashamed of yourself, and your deplorable vote on this crucial issue.
The American people know that there is no good to come from continuing down the same road of profligate spending that has gotten us to this point. It seems the only people not aware are the professional politicians, like yourself, who put the wishes and needs of the American people second to their own egos and aspirations.
You can rest assured, sir, that this single vote has pushed me to the point that I will not be able to support you in the future. You clearly have abrogated your responsibilities to your constituents.”
Not likely to get more than an auto-response, but...
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