President Obama says Agreement has been Reached to Reduce Deficit, Avoid Default, and Boost Ecomony
Jul 31st, 2011 | 12 responses
Lowest level of spending since Eisenhower, says the President, just now breaking into regular programming on tv to make this announcement: The Congress and President are seeking balanced books. Have to ask wealthiest americans and corporations to pay more. Have to cut entitlements. Most important to get out your yellow highlighter: second part of agreement: By Nov, bipartisan committes formed right now will report back on which programs will be cut, which spendings will take place, and then, an up or down vote
Everything will be on the table
Tough cuts that both parties find objectional will go into effect
Is this the deal Obama preferred? No.
It is a compromise, “a down payment” on the debt. It avoids default and relieves cloud of uncertainty for Americans and for the world, which this mess of posturing and slaying with no dragon present, has caused across the world.
President says process was messy, and took far too long, and had bad impact on consumer and business confidence
He thanks both party leaders for finding compromise
But, most of all, President thanks American people, their tweets, letters, emails, faxes, are the ones who have forced the hands of the house esp and senate also to avoid default.
MOST IMPORTANT: this “agreement” is NOT voted in yet by Congress… already hearing roars and screams from various Congress people.
Just a very brief analyses: This appears to mean
stop gap measures have been taken
the deal is temporary
there will be much more bipartisan wrangling to cut more/rescind more up to Nov 2011
beware the ides of march and the forming of “committees” in order to create a new world
Medicare, SS, and other entitlements including billion dollars each year to BIA, Bureau of Indian Affairs for huge entitlements given for decades to hundreds of sovereign nation tribes, and Pell grants, (reportedly over 1B a year to University of Phoenix, for profit university, alone) and on and on.
Agreement has not been voted on. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, not sure American or other nations will overlook what happened here, in terms of banks poised to slam dunk raise interest rates on credit cards, up interest on unfixed rate mortgages, causing many small investors to lose traction in the markets, in fact tanking many of them in the last week as confidence plummeting in what the elected officials were doing, which seemed posturing to many, rather than statesmanship and problem solving.
Compromise will never likely please all. But it can be a spring board to better, if used well. We will see, and the electorate will vote the men and women of this Congress into or out of office accordingly. When all is said and done, though the monied have the loudest voices, the working class people outnumber them in votes, and the working class people have been the most vulnerable in all that has gone on recently and stealthwise economically over the last ten years. They are not teapartiers. They are just hard working people, often with children and elders to take care of, a mortgage upside down, a car on its last legs, a health issue, and great great hearts: they vote.
12 Responses to “President Obama says Agreement has been Reached to Reduce Deficit, Avoid Default, and Boost Ecomony”
Thanks for bringing us up to date, dr. E, as only you can
If it passes tomorrow, I’m going to be a little shocked.
Now if they have to change it in the senate and send it back for another round, delaying the final vote until Tuesday, my view of congress will remain intact.
Well, those who were greedy for more money (for that much spending as well as more) will be disappointed. Much more important is something that was essential to any serious reform, of the problem, which is spending — entitlement reform. As the White House describes the deal, entitlement reform is avoided. (Medicare is not completely spared, but any cuts are to be in payments to providers — which guarantees further-reduced access. Hey, that’s a way to really cut costs, without actually reducing or ending benefits, technically.)
The agreement as described by the White House is here (below).
There are cuts proposed, subject to various details (see below).
Bizarre: Obama gets funding to preserve Pell Grants? “WTF?”
(Is Obama counting on getting the starry-eyed student vote again, apparently trying to preserve the support he got in 2008?)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheet-victory-bipartisan-compromise-economy-american-people
Prof, I suspect they wanted something everyone could agree to but the GOP activists in the House, perhaps, forcing them to be in the spotlight and to avoid voting No on this, hoping they agree.
It puts any future debt-limit vote beyond 2012, so the GOP activists wouldn’t be able to make any more trouble. Could be the GOP that did the negotiating thought that was an okay part of the deal. That is, any threat of losing public support and re-election is avoided, so goes the theory for the negotiators.
(Going beyond 2012 wasn’t needed and probably inappropriate, but I’m not surprised that putting off another spectacle like this was on the minds of the negotiators, not just Obama’s team.)
Ah, I think you are incorrect. I think there is no provision for increased revenue unless there is a deal breaker in December. That is why I don’t think the house teabillies will go for it in the morning.
I’m not at all happy about what is going on, but I always feel better after reading a post from Dr E, and so I think I can turn in with a little more philisophical and peaceful demeanor. Tomorrow is a new day. ..zzzz…
You’re right, Allen, that the “tea party” Republicans in the House may not accept this deal, but hopefully they won’t be that stupid.
As for revenue increases [sic; "tax increases" -- that is what is being referred to here], yes, there are those details like a commission and that infamous “trigger” (how well has such a thing worked before?), and sequestering, that involve tax increases or spending cuts, but let’s wait and see them before we believe them, shall we?
(Believe in them already if you choose.)
As to an example of “spin” in an editorial (with some truth in it, but it’s still “spin”), read the following, which the writers likely would say it means the “tea party” Republicans should vote Yes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576480653492061150.html
(I’ve been writing “tea party” now in lower case as a “generic” term because “Tea Party” is far from what was happening in 2008 to 2010, and the people being referred to are different now.)
Welcome to the Second Great Depression.
Sorry to say, I think QF is right. The TP (fools from the woodwork by any other name – they are not a new phenomenon) and their sympathizers have already done much damage to the country and it will likely get worse before (if) it gets better.
Blaming it on the newcomers who aren’t sticking to the status quo is just silly.
The second Great Depression was started a couple of decades ago. By attempting to paper it over, we ended up with a really, really long recession. When a hit that’s too big to paper over comes along, we’ll get one anyway.
But hey, we survived the first one, we’ll survive this next one also.
So glib about a depression Prof? I heard stories about it from grandparents, not much to be glib about based on what I heard. Of course most of the TP’ers in congress are too young to think about that in more than abstract terms and if they are well heeled enough to be in congress, then they are well heeled enough to ride out a depression more easily than those they are making decisions for. The depression didn’t improve because of austerity measures btw.
I don’t think it matters how we feel about it JS, it’s going to be extremely hard to avoid.
Although other countries have had this kind of debt, we haven’t. In the countries that did, it always ends badly. This is quite a bit different from anything that this country has been through, because we started it saddled with large amounts of foreign debt, and that commodity is limited.
Everything that worked before has failed miserably yet, like a newbie watering a cactus, many people simply want to double down on the failure. The entire world is in disarray and messed up beyond the standard norms. There is no easy fix this time.