President Obama announces that an eleventh-hour debt deal has been reached

Stimulus has nothing to do with this bill. That was never even part of the equation. Everyone knew there would be no stimulus once this House came into power. If the Dems wanted more stimulus, they had all of last year to try to make that happen.

Why would markets react negatively to this bill? I don't even follow the logic there. What businesses are losing their government contracts as a result of this bill - and is that a good reason to keep government spending? As noted many times now, there are NO spending cuts in the next 18 months.

Please do.

 

WTF? That has nothing to do with this bill - those things were going to happen anyway. Just like the Afghan War is going to continue as a result of this bill. Just like we will still have a CDC. This bill didn't end or cut those things at all.

That's nice and all, but that was never on the table in this bill. Not in anyone's wildest dreams was additional stimulus going to be part of this deal - nobody on either side ever seriously pushed for that.

And what, specifically, do they LOSE in this deal?

 

Those cuts should have been addressed in this bill. Not addressing them in this bill is in fact a choice in how to address them. The point is that we're cutting areas that should not be cut. This bill is going to have a negative economic impact because of that.

Payroll taxes and unemployment benefits are what keeps the middle class employed and let's job seekers hang on by a thread. Take this away from then and the middle class loses a lot.

Most people in the middle class depend on the livlihood based on spend. When you take money from the middle, and give it to the other ends of the spectrum, you effectively kill wealth for everyone. The Republicans have redistributed wealth to rich and the Dems have given it to the poor.

The middle class loses every time. There is no one representing them in Washington.

 

Well, if you saw the government going down the same failed "austerity" path that europe is trying (or that the US tried in 1937), and you know that cuts in goverment spending (even if deferred past 18 months) were in the future - wouldn't you expect markets to react negatively to what basically amounts to the permanent foreclosure of any change in that situation in the next 6 years?

It's not so much what's in the stupid bill - it's what's not in the bill. Basically the democrats went in with a few things they wanted and ended up with almost nothing. The Republicans, controlling all of one half of one house of congress, got a sh-tload, despite most of their ideas in practice being incredibly stupid and deleterious.

Eventually you have to step back from the whole "well we took what we could get and it's not that bad" and look at the big picture, and say "holy ****, we are ****ed"

 

I guess based on that standard, a lot of people lost. NASA lost because their budget wasn't expanded. We all lost because the war in Iraq wasn't ended. We didn't discover the cure for cancer in this bill either, so that's really a failure here.

 

Nothing in this bill is remotely like the austerity that's going in many European countries. Greece immediately cut all government salaries by 15%. They immediately cut pensions across the board, and changed their retirement age overnight by 2 years. This bill does nothing of the sort - it mostly just cuts defense spending in a few years, which until a few days ago was a big Democratic priority, along with a bunch of stuff no one can name.

What specific great things did the GOP get out of it? What did Dems go into it with that they didn't get? ALL the cuts were on Democratic terms - as will the next round of cuts. And they got the largest & longest debt ceiling increase in history. In exchange for what? A couple of symbolic votes that mean nothing?

People are assuming Dems didn't want to make budget changes - but they did. Remember, Obama was the one that proposed the largest number ($4 trillion). And he's the one that supported the debt commission that produced the boldest plan. And the Reid plan cut a whole lot more than the Boehner plan. Where the fight was focused was in the details and whether tax hikes would be included - and there, the Dems won out across the board. They have positioned themselves perfectly to force revenue increases in the $1.5T part of this.

 

You are correct.

Discretionary spending over the next ten years

 

$1043 rising to $1234?

Seems like very low levels of discretionary spending.

 

It actually doesn't matter that much what the specific cuts are when the fact that austerity is now the order of the day is ultimately the most damaging thing in the long run. Yes, it's not "as bad" as Greece, or even the UK. But then again, the US wasn't in a situation as bad as Greece - not even remotely cloes to it, in fact we're basically in the opposite situation as Greece in terms of available tools and the nature of the issues involved (low borrowing costs, our own currency, long term problems rather than short term solvency).

Second, you're not factoring in that state and local governments (which, IIRC are not budgeted independently in most european countries, or at least are comparatively much smaller) will continue to hemmorhage, so a flatlining federal government spending line coupled with that is going to result in a G that is actually declining.

 

you got to be kidding me. Our economy is teetering on entering a recession and we are cutting spending and letting all stimulus effects expire. Obama just doomed himself to being the next Jimmy Carter.

There will be no Reagan revolution this time. There is no room to cut takes in 2013. Our economy will lag now for the next 10 years. High commodity prices, steep foreign competition, and less money for students and spend will keep our economy like Japan's for the next decade.

Obama and the Republicans just screwed over the middle class and you think it's the same as NASA not getting money????

C'mon Major, we have 9% unemployment. The Fed has exhausted all its tools to stimulus. What are we going to do now to up the economy? With payrool tax breaks expiring, and unemployment benefits dropping off - our economy is going to be in for a very bad 2012.

Let's see you sing the praises of this deal then.

Obama is a fool, Republicans fleeced him. Look at the vote in the House, he could have lost all the tea party vote and still gotten something through. He should have stuck to stimulus spending for 2012. he f'd up.

Mitt Romney will be the next president of the united states. You had better hope Dems hold onto the Senate or we are back to the gov't being entirely in the control of one party who will cut taxes and reduce spending and tank the economy even more.

 

Actually, it hasn't. There can be more QE, just to name one tool.

 

QE is fine to hold off deflation but it's probably not strong enough to make up for the lost GDP/job losses from spending cuts as the last few economic data releases show. Not to mention the fact that the federal reserve has a nice little pain caucus who apparently are happy with 9% UE.

 

GOP tacks on riders to the debt deal that gut the EPA, including preventing the new auto standards just announced. Obviously they won't go anywhere but sheesh, these guys just seem more and more extreme.

 

It's very different. Greece actually cut massive amounts of government spending during a recession. The US is doing no such thing - it's simply slowing the growth of spending in the long haul, which doing nothing in the short term. The things that were damaging to Greece are just not being done here. There's simply no comparison between the two besides the word "austerity" which really has no meaning by itself.

That's true - in the long term. In the short term, this bill has no effect on government spending. But *both parties* are in agreement that government spending has to drop in the long term.

 

For about the 17th time, what part of "THERE ARE NO CUTS TO SPENDING IN THE NEXT 18 MONTHS" isn't computing for you?

This is a nonsensical discussion. This was a debt ceiling and long-term spending cuts deal - that's it. That's all anyone ever expected. It was not a "fix everything that's wrong with the world" deal. If that's your measure of success, then that's just silliness on your part. You're judging the bill by something it was never meant to do.

 

Swamped with work but just glancing in on this thread am not surprised that few like this bill, with it seems the exception of Major.

From what I have been able to read about it its a bad bill but as of last week when Boehner and Reid came out with relatively similar bills I am not surprised that something like this was going to be what the final debt ceiling bill would. That said this seems like a better option than default which sounded like it would be much worse.

 

Yeah, Major is spinning like a top. I'm expecting him to keel over soon from dizziness and barf in his coffee cup.

 

I wished this was all this bill was but if you look at the debate behind raising the debt ceiling clearly many were looking at this bill to address many other issues.

 

Big enough QE can do the trick, and that's just one tool.

The pain caucus isn't happy with fiscal stimulus either.

 

I have asked MULTIPLE times for specifics of what people dislike. All I've gotten is:

1. It sucks.
2. It doesn't fix all of our problems.

If you don't like the bill, give us examples of why - I've given you plenty of specifics on the other side. Otherwise, you're just repeating stupid talking points and contributing nothing to the discussion. Step up and defend a position instead just throwing around nonsense. You want to know why I make the connection between people on the left and tea partiers? This is exactly it: stupid insults with no factual analysis backing it up.