They Raised The Roof

Okay...forget that ridiculous photo for a minute....That's clearly the only thing to laugh about... Unless you are living under a rock...you no doubt know that President Obama and the Republicans came to an agreement late Sunday to raise the debt celing and keep the U.S. from it's first ever default and what could have been (but shouldn't have been) a financial debacle of world wide proportions...But should anybody be applauding this as a victory?


Paul Krugman of the New York Times had this to say about it:

"For the deal itself, given the available information, 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.


Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.


The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn’t work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.


Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse. On one side, interest rates on federal borrowing are currently very low, so spending cuts now will do little to reduce future interest costs. On the other side, making the economy weaker now will also hurt its long-run prospects, which will in turn reduce future revenue. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and thereby made them even sicker. "

I couldn't agree with what he said more...And then there are the reported terms of the deal, which actually amount to an abject surrender on the part of President Obama.

First You're going to have the big spending cuts, with no increase in revenue. Then a panel will make recommendations for further deficit reduction — (You know they will.)and if these recommendations aren’t accepted, there will be more spending cuts and all the while...We won't be increasing revenue or creating jobs..We just won't be spending any money...I wonder just what world these Republicans live in sometimes.. No not sometimes..All of the time!

Now, said Republicans will supposedly have an incentive to make concessions the next time around, because defense spending was be among the areas cut. But the G.O.P. has just demonstrated its willingness to risk financial collapse unless it gets everything its most extreme members(The Tea Party) want. Why would anyone watching this expect them to be more reasonable the next time around???

They won't!...So you see..Even though it looks like the President won this round...He really didn't...Even though some of the Republicans think they won..They really didn't!!..Not from the tea party's perspective...It just looks like nobody lost as bad as they could...

Yeah...Go figure.