ABC News has what details we have. 2.8T increase in debt ceiling, 1T in cuts, remainder as per commission, commission must recommend cuts by Thanksgiving, cuts must be implemented by end of year or there’s going to be across-the-board cuts. And there has to be a vote on the BBA.
So. Does this deal suck, or is it great? Devil’s going to be in the details. To give just one example: immediate 1T cuts and immediate 1.8T recommended cuts will be a completely different thing than cuts ‘scheduled’ for, say, 2017. We’re going to need to see the actual deal first, in other words. One thing’s for certain, though: we’re apparently not the only people out there who think that Harry Reid is a useless waste of space…
Moe Lane
I like the summary, but yeah, details will be key. As long as there is no tax increases, we won.
Isn’t $1T about the amount of the proposed fake ‘cuts’ for the wind-down of Afghanistan, etc.? Color me skeptical.
I haven’t seen anything but this and a few Twitter mentions, but I reckon “the deal” is tolerably clear.
That is: it references the “baseline”, which presupposes 2+ trillion in increases. Expenditures will thus swell a trifle slower than anticipated, O yay. And we get a committee which will no doubt include Darling Debbie to decide on the rest of it. Yeah, the law sez. F* that. The law sez they have to do a budget, remember?
Sharpen the pitchforks. It’s the only remaining alternative.
Regards,
Ric
I did not want the GOP to expend too much energy into forcing spending “cuts” as a condition for raising the debt ceiling because I feared that the only “deficit reduction” Obama and the Democrat controlled US Senate would agree to would be (a) defense cuts and (b) tax increases.
My preference was for the GOP to save their deficit reduction appetites for 2013, by which time the GOP will have captured the White House and US Senate.
But it looks like a deal is soon to be struck and it might result in tax increases and/or defense cuts. Perhaps the damage of either or both policy choices can be undone in 2013.