“Bottom line: there will be about $40 billion in actual, real spending cuts until the next, $16.7 trillion debt ceiling limit is hit some time in Q1 2013,”
Then Obama gets pretty much what he wanted.
Cut $0.04 trillion over 1 1/2 years and add 2.4 trillion to the debt. It's a sweeping plan alright. A plan to get Obama re-elected.
Obama and the Democrats win:
1. Phony cuts. Spending will still increase significantly every single year in sight. There will be hardly any change in the anticipated budgets for the next couple of years so that incumbents can still trade pork for votes and campaign financing.
Moody’s and the other ratings agencies say the cuts, even including the ones from the committee, are not nearly enough and that they will be downgrading us — as they should. Tell me, why is the mainstream media so silent and unconcerned about real downgrades as a result of our deep structural problems, which are an order of magnitude more serious than any downgrade from a short term debt ceiling problem?
2. Then, later this year, we have a choice of a) tax increases that will surely come from the phony committee or b) unreasonable and dangerously deep cuts in defense and security spending.
The establishment Republicans win because they will point at this phony bill and claim they are holding the line.
Politics as usual wins. The country loses. We are still on the suicidal path of becoming Greece.