;)
Sunday
Jul312011
The Commentariat -- August 1
They have acted like terrorists. -- Vice President Joe Biden, referring to Tea Party Republicans, in a closed-door meeting with Democrats
President Obama Sunday night on debt ceiling deal:
... Here's the White House fact sheet on the particulars of the deal. CW: talk about low expectations, it appears the deal isn't as bad as I thought it would be. ...
... AND here's Boehner's fact sheet (pdf) which he prepared for his caucus. As Steve Benen gleefully points out, Boehner's fact sheet is not factual. Boehner lied to his own caucus to make the deal sound more Loon Squad-friendly. With any luck, they won't catch on. ...
... The Washington Post has a handy little chart on who got what. ...
... NEW. CW: As I said yesterday upon looking over the an outline of the deal, so says Nate Silver: "If Democrats read the fine print on the debt deal struck by President Obama and Congressional leaders, they’ll find that it’s a little better than it appears at first glance." ...
... Paul Krugman: "... the deal ... is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status." ...
... I've posted a Krugman page on Off Times Square. Several other commenters and I have added our New York Times comments; the Times has held back all of them, so -- as usual -- this is the place to read same-day comments. ...
... ** Too Late. The Damage Is Already Done. David Sanger of the New York Times: "Among foreign leaders and in global markets, the political histrionics have eroded America’s already diminishing aura as the world’s economic haven and the sole country with the power to lead the rest of the world out of financial crisis and . It has chipped away at the global authority of , who was celebrated abroad when he came to office as a man who would end an era of American unilateralism. Now the topic of discussion in other capitals is whether the Age of Obama is giving way to an Age of Austerity, one that will inevitably reduce America’s influence internationally." ...
... Matt Miller of the Washington Post writes an excellent column the headline of which is "The debt deal: disaster averted, decline straight ahead." ...
... Greg Sargent: "... it apppears the GOP is on the verge of pulling off a political victory that may be unprecedented in American history. Republicans may succeed in using the threat of a potential outcome that they themselves acknowledged would lead to national catastrophe as leverage to extract enormous concessions from Democrats, without giving up anything of any significance in return." ...
... AND Sargent on Obama's tactics: "... while critics ... argue that there is plenty more Obama could have done to rally the public to pressure Republicans, it’s important to note that Obama and Dems did win the P.R. battle. Multiple polls showed strong support for compromise; they showed a decisive shift towards the notion that failure to raise the debt ceiling could be catastrophic; they showed the public would blame the GOP for failure. Yet that didn’t stop the GOP from allowing the threat of default to linger, even as it upped its demands." ...
... Long Ride on a Blunder Bus. Jonathan Chait of The New Republic: "There’s a limit to how much faith one can place in a man who has so badly misjudged his political opponents time and time again. The debt ceiling ransom may be a shrewd strategic retreat, or it may be the largest in a series of historic capitulations." ...
... Michael Scherer of Time: Americans' Number One priority is jobs, and the debt deal means at least short-term limits on jobs creation. CW: frankly, I think that's the cynical understory in the Tea Party Plan to Wreck America.
... Cuts Will Make a Weak Economy Weaker. Binyamin Appelbaum & Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "The emerging outlines of a deal to cut spending by at least $2.4 trillion over 10 years, with a multibillion-dollar down payment later this year, would complete an about-face in the federal government’s role from outsize spending in the immediate aftermath of the to outsize cuts going forward." CW: funny how in the last couple of days -- at least a month after it was too late -- stories like this are finally moving off the op-ed pages & blogs & into the news & analysis pages. ...
... Daniel Stone of the Daily Beast: Vice President Joe "Biden hasn’t been heard from publicly in 61 days, since he last spoke with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on a visit to Rome. But on the day that a final deal with Republicans finally came together, White House officials said that Biden had been the key player in the administration's dealings with Congress, especially late in the negotiations when talks descended repeatedly into partisan warfare...." ...
... New York Times Editors: "... this episode demonstrates the effectiveness of extortion. Reasonable people are forced to give in to those willing to endanger the national interest." ...
... Washington Post Editors: "When the hostage is released, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, no matter what it took to secure his safety." ...
... USA Today Editors: They didn't cut enough! CW: really. ...
... Wall Street Journal Editors: Ditto. Of course. Oh, and blame it on liberals. ...
... Simon Johnson, writing in Bloomberg News, zeros in on "the U.S.’s single largest fiscal problem over the next decade: The lack of adequate capital buffers at banks." He explains.
Profs. Jacob Hacker & Oona Hathaway in a New York Times op-ed: "After the debt crisis ends, the democracy crisis must be tackled. Nobody wins when our constitutional system falters: not the president, who gains unilateral power but loses a governing partner; not Congress, which gets to blame the president but risks irrelevance; and certainly not the American people, who have to bear the resulting dysfunction."
Local News
More Reasons Florida Sucks. Kevin Sack of the New York Times: "Despite having the country’s fourth-highest unemployment rate, its second-highest rate of people without insurance and a $3.7 billion budget gap this year, the state has turned away scores of millions of dollars in grants made available under the Affordable Care Act. And it is not pursuing grants worth many millions more. In recent months, either [America's Worst Governor] ’s administration or the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected grants aimed at moving long-term care patients into their homes, curbing child abuse through in-home counseling and strengthening state regulation of health premiums. They have shunned money to help sign up eligible recipients for , educate teenagers on preventing pregnancy and plan for the health insurance exchanges that the law requires by 2014."
News Ledes
Reuters: "Israel has told Middle East power brokers it was ready to discuss a proposed package on borders with Palestinians to help Western powers revive stalled peace talks, an Israeli official said Monday. The official denied reports by Israeli and other media outlets that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had backed down from an earlier rejection of President Barack Obama's proposal to negotiate a pullback to so-called 1967 borders."
Washington Post: "The House approved a bill that raises the federal debt limit and cuts discretionary spending by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. The 269 to 161 vote sends the bill to the Senate, which is likely to consider the plan Tuesday. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords cast her first vote in the House since being shot in January, voting yes." ...
... CBS News: "Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona made a surprise return to Washington Monday to vote in favor of an agreement to raise the debt limit.... Lawmakers offered Giffords a standing ovation on the House floor when she showed up in the chamber. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Giffords' name inspires the love and admiration of Americans, and said to applause: 'Thank you, Gabby.'" AP story here, with what looks like a screengrab. ...
... New York Times: "Democratic and Republican leaders in the Congress began making their final arguments on behalf of Sunday’s deal to skeptical members in advance of votes in both chambers that could come as early as Monday afternoon." ...
... Update. New Headline (the lede hasn't caught up yet): "House passes bill on debt ceiling."
Here's the Washington Post's take on the politics of the deal. "The deal was negotiated primarily by Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). It teetered all day on the edge of completion as House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) bickered with Democrats over whether to freeze next year’s defense budget. In the end, Boehner conceded the point, and Obama finalized the agreement in phone calls to each of the four congressional leaders shortly after 8 p.m."
Washington Post: "Asian and European markets surged Monday after President Obama and congressional leaders reached a deal to raise the debt ceiling, avoiding a U.S. default that threatened painful implications for the global economy." ...
... CW Update: the American stock market sure ain't liking it. See widget above. New York Times: "Stocks on Wall Street briefly followed European and Asian financial markets higher Monday, but any relief over the last-minute agreement on a framework in Washington to raise the United States was short-lived.... The dip coincided with the release of new data that showed American manufacturing growing more slowly...."
AP: "British banking group HSBC said Monday it will cut 30,000 jobs worldwide by 2013 and sell almost half its retail bank branches in the U.S., part of a new strategy to focus on fast-growing emerging markets." CW: yesterday the story was 10,000 jobs."
Share Article