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Debt Deal Near!
President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders reached urgently for a compromise Sunday to permit vital borrowing by the Treasury in exchange for more than $2 trillion in long-term spending cuts phased in over a decade. Thousands of programs -- the Park Service, Internal Revenue Service and Labor Department accounts among them -- could be trimmed to levels last seen years ago.Can't trim the IRS; it has to be expanded to enforce Obamacare. No Social Security or Medicare benefits would be cut, but the programs could be scoured for other savings. So after all this posturing, they will still fail to do anything about the real structural problems? Read on; it's punted to another "commission". As contemplated in talks that McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden were negotiating, the federal debt limit would rise in two stages by at least $2.2 trillion, enough to tide the Treasury over until after the 2012 elections. Taxes would be unlikely to rise. Unlikely. Read my lips. The first step would take place immediately, raising the debt limit by nearly $1 trillion and cutting spending by a slightly larger amount over a decade. That would be followed by creation of a new congressional committee that would have until the end of November to recommend $1.8 trillion or more in deficit cuts, targeting benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, or overhauling the tax code. See? Overhauling the tax code is not the same as raising taxes! Those deficit cuts would allow a second increase in the debt limit, which would be needed by early next year. If the committee failed to reach its $1.8 trillion target, or Congress failed to approve its recommendations by the end of 2011, lawmakers would then have to vote on a proposed constitutional balanced-budget amendment. Oh, good. They can't vote before that? If that failed to pass, automatic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion would automatically take effect, and the debt limit would rise by an identical amount. Social Security, Medicaid and food stamps would be exempt from the automatic cuts, but payments to doctors, nursing homes and other Medicare providers could be trimmed, as could subsidies to insurance companies that offer an alternative to government-run Medicare. Single payer system, here we come. Stephen Den Beste called it! The best news? As details began to emerge, one liberal organization, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, issued a statement that was harshly critical. "Seeing a Democratic president take taxing the rich off the table and instead push a deal that will lead to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefit cuts is like entering a bizarre parallel universe -- one with horrific consequences for middle-class families," it said. Posted by: Bobby 2011-07-31 |
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