What is your opinion of the budget/deb ceiling "breakthrough"?

The plan is a disaster. The Republicans kept the Democrats from getting anything they wanted. The tug of the Tea Party may have had a lot to do with that.

What will happen is this: the economy will stall and fall into depression again. The unemployed will have no more benefits and the number of foreclosures and homeless will all rise.

More people will not get health care because they can’t afford it. Many providers will stop serving the elderly because they won’t accept the lower Medicare payments. Lines for care will lengthen; triage will become more important; and the elderly will be sicker and die sooner.

The poor will be hurt the most. Cutbacks in house, training and all kinds of other programs that help them will make it even harder for them to get out of poverty. Life expectancy will decrease. Perhaps dramatically. The infant death rate will also increase pretty dramatically.

Schools will lose teachers and capital funds. Class sizes will get larger. Building will become more decrepit. The middle class, such as it will be, will opt out more and more.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

The real question is whether the Republicans will get the blame or not. Will people stick to this unreasonable belief that cutting spending is the best means to debt reduction and that debt reduction is what is needed? If so, the Republicans will take over the presidency and the Senate, and we’ll get more of the same and we’ll see recession for years to come.

If the public blames Republicans, then maybe we’ll get Democrats in power and reinstate programs that do a lot of good. We may offset those expenses by cutting loopholes and taxing the rich, who make about 50% of the money. Extra spending will stimulate the economy and perhaps we’ll be able to spend our way into prosperity. Prosperity, of course, will increase earnings and tax collections, helping balance the budget the way Clinton did.

Anyway, you heard it here first. Check back in four years to see if these predictions have come true.

The Right staked out such an extreme bargaining position from the beginning that their “compromises” still amounted to a far right policy shift. It was apparent right from the beginning: wasn’t it Cantor who said, “the compromise is that we’re willing to talk about raising the debt limit at all”? Later, it became “We insist on amending the Constitution”.

When your opponent’s starting position is outrageous, then anything short of outrageous starts looking pretty good. What if the Democrats had gone into it demanding that the corporate tax rate be raised until the deficit disappears, and that no spending cuts be made?

It’s made me decide not to campaign for Obama in 2012.

What’s the point of wasting my time and energy when the result is, at best, marginally better than the Republican alternative and in the process completely emboldens the kind of hostage-taking the Republican minority has now perfected?

Unfuckingbelievable. And I am terrified that we will have a double-dip recession because of this.

Apparently Obama cares more about compromise and centrism than pragmatically doing the right thing.

@Qingu @wundayatta Are you guys seriously that deluded? Look I am hardcore liberal, extreme Democrat…. and even I recognize the need for budget cuts. Did the Republicans play politics, yah, you’re damn right they did. But are you so delusional in your beliefs to think that we could continue to spend money like we have been indefinitely? Are you so polar opposite of the Republicans that you are willing to do what many of them did and outright refuse to make a deal?

Don’t get me wrong, this is hardly a great deal. But its a great start at getting the budget under control, half the money is coming out of the defense department, and entitlements like social security and medicare/medicaid are untouched (even though frankly they need to be reformed) ( @wundayatta on that, I believe you’d listed that medicaid payments would go down, that is incorrect).

And @Qingu… seriously? This is going to make you not campaign for Obama? Are you stupid? He’s done more for the liberal cause (not to mention our country) than any president since at least Johnson, and arguably since FD-Fing-R. Healthcare reform, two liberal judges, 100k less troops in Iraq, tons of money into social programs and research, new mpg regulations, a reduction of nukes on the planet by ⅓ with russia, tons of money into alternative energy research, and the removal of DADT.

You guys are being blind to the fact that even though half the country (overwhelmingly represented here on Fluther) wants a liberal stance….....half the country doesn’t. You have to compromise, even when dealing with children who stomp their feet and hum to try and ignore you and get their way.

@tedd If you believe that Medicare and Medicaid will remain untouched, then you can’t possibly have thought this through much. When you reduce payments for services, doctors stop accepting Medicare and Medicaid patients. When that happens, more patients must be seen by fewer doctors. This creates waits for care, and difficulty accessing care if you have to travel a long distance to find a doctor who will accept Medicare and Medicaid payments.

Yeah, maybe the qualifications for beneficiaries may remain unchanged (although I don’t believe that for a second—states always go to Medicaid to reduce coverage and benefits and payments when they are low on funds), but reduced benefit payments will have a serious effect.

As to the debt—I think we are managing that just fine. We can make our payments. Our debt is about at the level of GDP. It’s manageable. If we grow the economy, it will be more manageable. That’s how we got out of the depression. That’s how we’ve gotten out of past recessions. But we can’t afford tax cuts now. The only way to get more money in the economy is to make it.

Frankly, I think that people who think the debt is the only problem are absolutely crazy. I can’t believe that so many people accept this as gospel.

This deal is a disaster. You’ll see. I wish and hope that it isn’t a disaster, but that’s what I think. Of course, things will happen in the next four years, and hopefully people will see sense and make changes to ameliorate the situation. But right now it’s trouble and everyone has been snookered into believing the debt is much more of a problem than it is.

@wundayatta I’m sorry, but as much as 2.4 trillion over 10 years is not going to help things for the people who would’ve been on the benefiting end of that money…........ It is most definitely not a disaster. Especially considering around half of it is out of the defense department.

@tedd,

Obama’s HCR is indistinguishable from Republican proposals for UHC. It only looks good when you compare it to the rabid foaming-at-the-mouth insanity coming from the opposition today.

We were set to withdraw troops from Iraq when Obama took office. He’s also kept Gates, a Republican, and while I’m not opposed to his policy in Afghanistan it was certainly a “centrist” position at best.

On your other points, sure, yes, and Ledbetter was good too. I will also grant that cutting defense is a good idea (which this deal does) and at least the cuts are back loaded (so it might not lead to a double-dip though frankly at this point I would not be surprised if it does anyway).

I am just sick of treading water at best. And I don’t really see what we have compromised. What have the Republicans given up in this deal? We’ve gained nothing; no UI, no stimulus, no guarantee that this fiasco won’t be repeated next year, no payroll tax holiday. The only thing we “gained” was an increase in the debt ceiling… which the Republicans themselves voted for with the Ryan budget and which their wall street masters would never have let them not pass.

When one side of the aisle acts like children the solution is not to cave entirely to them. That sends the message that this tactic works. Which is why they keep using it. Which is why it does work.

And I think it’s absurd to compare Obama to FDR or even Johnson. FDR excorciated the shit out of his political opponents. He had more leverage, but he would not have tolerated the kind of shit that the Republicans are pulling even with just the senate under his control. And Johnson? You are seriously comparing the Great Society to the better-than-nothing shit that is HCR? (And the reason HCR is shit is because, of course, Obama started at the compromise position, left of even just a public option, and let the negotiations water it down from there—this is now his MO).

On the one hand I should not be surprised since Obama campaigned as a centrist compromiser. I just hoped that he was more of a pragmatist and that centrist compromise was simply a method of pragmatically achieving good policy to him. But I was wrong. He seems to have an ideological obsession with compromise and centrism for its own sake. And you know what? Fuck it. I’m not donating money or spending my weekends campaigning for someone who won’t even fight for what’s right, who starts every debate by caving to the David Brooks style “centrists” and ends every debate by caving further towards Republicans. I’m sick of it, I feel like our political system is fucked anyway, and at this point I’m not even convinced that a Republican president would be more than marginally worse. I mostly want to move out of this country.

Also:

“But are you so delusional in your beliefs to think that we could continue to spend money like we have been indefinitely?”

It is a matter of fact that we can spend this money indefinitely, provided the recession ends and Bush tax cuts simply cease to exist as (originally) scheduled.

There is no debt crisis. There never was. This entire thing is manufactured to blackmail us into asceding to Republican ideology, to “starve the beast.” And it is infuriating that Obama and Democrats in general have given so much ground, during a recession, at 10% unemployment.

@Qingu You have a romanticized memory of president Johnson. And I said since FDR, implying I did not think Obama was better, but the best since. Obama’s HC plan just covered a few dozen million more Americans, ended pre-existing conditions, and made it incredibly more affordable (not to mention cheaper for the Federal Government). Its not public option sure, that would be ideal…. but again you’re forgetting, half the country doesn’t want that. Be they idiots or not, the issue is not slavery, we can’t drag them kicking and screaming…. it would be outright ignoring one of the founding principles of our country to do so.

We weren’t set to remove over 100k troops from Iraq, we were set to draw back to pre-surge levels (100k-110k from the over 150k we had). Thanks to Obama there are currently somewhere in the ballpark of 50k, and they’re in almost entirely secondary roles (the Iraqis are doing the patrols and such). It may be a “centrist” plan in Afghanistan, but its exactly what he campaigned on in 08, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

And you honestly think the debt issue in this country is manufactured? There are only two times in the history of the US where our debt/GDP has hit 100%.... at the end of the Civil War, and the end of World War 2. Its not nearly as fire and brimstone as the Tea Partiers and righties would have you think, for example those two times we reached 100%, it actually climbed up to around 150%. But considering the avg debt/GDP for most of the last 100 years has been no greater than 70%.... and we’re talking numbers into the trillions of dollars…. that’s an issue that needs to be dealt with I’m sorry. We haven’t reached a point where its all or nothing, which is why making token and small cuts now is the smart thing to do…... Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather they revised the tax code and reformed entitlements so that both of them were smart again….. But this is a satisfactory start.

You are being overly emotional…. and frankly you’re acting like a Tea Partier, just swinging from the other side of the fence.

@tedd, my problem with your post is the same as my problem with Obama. The fact that ½ of the country doesn’t want the right thing, the fact that compromise is necessary, doesn’t mean compromise is laudatory. And it’s certainly no excuse for shitty compromises. I used to defend Obama’s HCR in exactly the same terms you do. (I will probably continue to do so). But I also used to think that Obama did everything he could to negotiate the best possible HCR.

I simply don’t think that’s true. We know he ruled out the public option from the get go. He started in the center and then moved further and further to the right. For a long time I thought “well I don’t know the situation, I don’t want to play armchair political strategist.” But, he did the same thing with financial reform. He did the same thing with the stimulus. He did the same thing with stimulus round 2. And he just did it again with the debt ceiling.

Obama is, ostentibly, a democratic president. His job is not to stake out a centrist position and then negotiate from there to water it down. His job is to stake out progressive decisions, defend them publically, build support for them, and use whatever means necessary to enact them.

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On Iraq, my understanding is that an agreement was in place between Bush and Maliki to draw down our troop presence along similar lines that Obama eventually ended up doing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93Iraq_Status_of_Forces_Agreement

So, sure, he deserves credit for following through on this, but it’s not like this is a major accomplishment of his administration. And please understand, I’m not opposed to Obama on foreign policy. It hink he made the best possible decision out of bad decisions in AFghanistan. I do think he fucked up Libya though, but at least not on the level of debacle that was the Iraq War. My concern in this regard, actually, is that Obama really is the pushover that General McChrystal reported him to be in that Rolling Stones report. Again, I never used to think this was true. Now? He’s a pushover in most other respects and his foreign policy does seem to be simply splitting the difference between what his (mostly conservative/hawkish) advisers are telling him.

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On debt: yes, I do. Let me be clear: we obviously have too much debt. It’s a problem. But:
1. It’s not a pressing problem right now. Our interest rates are still insanely low. Inflation is still low. Investors are not flocking to a rival country because of our debt. If you were to rank the problems facing America right now, “debt” would be one of them… but “10% unemployment” ought to be much, MUCH higher on your list if you are a sane person. It’s like someone standing around dithering and worrying about their credit card debt instead of driving their kid to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.

2. It’s not even a pressing long term problem. If Congress does nothing, and if we recover from recession eventually—the problem goes away. The wars end, the Bush tax cuts expire, and our debt will gradually disappear.

The only reason the debt is an issue is because Republicans have made it an issue, both through their insane (and hypocritical) rhetoric and through their cultlike devotion to tax cuts. And the only reason they have been able to do this is because Democrats have constantly enabled them to do so at every single turn.