If you want the most positive spin on the debt ceiling agreement, you can choose between Jay Newton-Small and Deaniac83. Those are both good pieces that make solid arguments. I have to confess I’m a little mystified by the triggers, as they seem to offer almost no incentive to the Democrats on the SuperCommittee to make a deal. Gee, if we have a stalemate that means massive cuts to the Pentagon’s budget and downward pressure on the cost of Medicare? I’ll take that in a minute.
The deal is considerably better than what I feared, but I also think those two pieces are glossing over what a calamity this whole thing has been and what it means for the future. These are huge cuts, yet they don’t even begin to tackle our deficit. So, we’ll keep coming back to this. What we need is something equivalent to the creation of the Internet that will help us grow our way out of this fiscal sinkhole we’re in. With these austerity measures, we’re not going to be stimulating our way out of this mess. And, with Republican dominance of the Senate assured through 2014, we’re not going to accomplish much of anything that we can celebrate.
