Things you might not hear about the debt ceiling deal

I know that all over the media you're probably hearing that the Democrats capitulated to the tea baggers. What will be interesting will be to see how those lunatics in the House vote on this thing. You can usually count on Erik Erickson of Red State to catch where that wind is blowing. And he's clearly not pleased. You might not want to click on that wingnut link. But its fascinating to compare and contrast that with how the poutragers on the front page of Daily Kos are spinning it. They are true mirrors of each other. That DK author's claim (the same one who used Boehner's lies last night to explain the deal) is that Boehner is more trustworthy than the White House. Yeah, you read that right. Is your head spinning yet?

Without going over the whole deal (I'm hoping you can get that information elsewhere), I thought I'd point out a few things that I find interesting. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from the White House Fact Sheet on the deal.

First of all, the spending cuts are timed to avoid harming the recovery.

The deal includes a mechanism to ensure additional deficit reduction, consistent with the economic recovery. The enforcement mechanism would not be made effective until 2013, avoiding any immediate contraction that could harm the recovery. And savings from the down payment will be enacted over 10 years, consistent with supporting the economic recovery.

Secondly, the initial phase of spending cuts are the same ones that Biden had agreed to when Cantor walked out on the negotiations.

Thirdly, if the committee put in place to find a balanced approach to deficit reduction is not successful, the spending reductions will hit the Pentagon pretty hard. Here's what Ezra Klein says about that.

In the initial $900 billion in cuts, almost half will come from “security spending” (which includes defense, homeland security, veteran’s benefits, the State Department, etc). Defense is the big money there, and, according to the White House’s fact sheet, it will take a full $350 billion in cuts on its own. But the real hit comes in stage two: if the second round of deficit reduction isn’t signed into law, the “trigger” that will make automatic spending cuts absolutely savages defense spending.

As Phillip Klein says, that sets up an interesting development for conservatives.

President Obama said during his brief remarks tonight that he would continue to push for a “balanced approach” (i.e. higher taxes). No doubt, Democrats on the Congressional committee will be insisting on raising taxes as part of deficit reduction, and Republicans will be torn in both directions. Either they agree to tax increases, or they trigger automatic defense cuts on top of the cuts that they already agreed to.

No doubt, we’ll start to see more and more opposition from conservative defense hawks to slashing the military budget, while the Norquist crowd will continue to push Republicans to accept more defense cuts to avoid any increase in taxes.

Now that should be fun to watch!

In addition, the triggered cuts to other spending are limited.

Consistent with the bipartisan precedents established in the 1980s and 1990s, the sequester would be divided equally between defense and non-defense program, and it would exempt Social Security, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, programs for low-income families, and civilian and military retirement. Likewise, any cuts to Medicare would be capped and limited to the provider side.

Not only are Social Security, Medicaid, etc. exempt from cuts, the ones allowed for Medicare would be capped and limited to providers. So there will be NO cuts to Medicare recipients and the cuts to providers will be capped at 2%.

Finally, you'll hear a lot of talk about how the deal doesn't include revenue increases. That's bullsh*t. If the committee doesn't include adequate balance between spending cuts and revenue increases, President Obama has reserved his own trigger.

The Bush tax cuts expire as of 1/1/2013, the same date that the spending sequester would go into effect. These two events together will force balanced deficit reduction. Absent a balanced deal, it would enable the President to use his veto pen to ensure nearly $1 trillion in additional deficit reduction by not extending the high-income tax cuts.

Yeah, I was right on that one. President Obama never took them off the table.

So there are some talking points for you to use when you hear that this deal was all one-sided. Don't let the motherf*ckers get you down!