It’s a deal … We’ll add just $7 trillion to debt instead of $10 trillion

The President moments ago announced a budget ceiling deal. Details still coming out but my guess is this will have a tough time getting through the House. Details below the fold but one thing you should know, the bond rating services seem to indicate all this does is solve the short term deal. Long term term still heading toward the cliff.

I’ll have video and audio from tonight on the show tomorrow. But here’s the question in the first hour? Is this a victory for the Tea Party. After all, it cuts the rate of debt growth and no taxes BUT the debt continues to climb. Here’s why. The President budget called for a $10 trillion increase in the national debt. With this … debt should only increase $7 trillion. Victory? Word is balance budget amendment is still alive too.

 

This from the Hill. The Republicans get spending cuts, some now, some later, Obama gets his debt ceiling increase. No new taxes.

Congressional sources familiar with the outlines of the deal say it would cut the deficit by about $2.8 trillion and raise the debt limit by a similar amount. The deal includes $1.2 trillion in spending cuts up front and creates a select bicameral committee to find another $1.6 trillion in savings later in the 112th Congress.

The tentative deal hangs on so-called triggers intended to give lawmakers strong incentive to implement the second round of deficit reduction.

A person familiar with the deal said Obama and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) agreed that if the select committee deadlocked or Congress failed to pass its recommendations, it would automatically trigger $1.2 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts.

The president and McConnell agreed to divide the automatic spending cuts evenly between defense and nondefense programs, according to the source. Obama also persuaded GOP leaders to set up firewalls to ensure a significant amount of the spending cuts would take place in fiscal years 2012 and 2013.

Listening tonight to Senator Lindsey Graham (D,SC) cuts from defense and discretionary budget are spilt evenly 50/50 and that concerns him and with good reason. Defense is supposed to be priority number one for our government … well unless you live in lefty land. Joe Lieberman not happy about that either.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), another Independent in the Democratic caucus, balked at the prospect of steep defense cuts if the special committee set up by the deal deadlocks over future recommendations to reduce the deficit.

Lieberman’s spokesman, Marshall Wittmann, said his boss “strongly believes that protecting the security of the American people is the first responsibility of American government, and that means that any cuts to defense must be fair, limited, and mindful of the fact that we live in a very dangerous world.”

“For these reasons, Senator Lieberman is very concerned about rumors that the debt agreement now being negotiated will disproportionately cut defense spending and result in unacceptably high risk to our national security,” Wittmann added.

If you want to see the power point Republican legislators are getting tonight, here it is. Caution, as Sen Jeff Sessions point out … these thing have a habit of being inaccurate later.

Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

17 Comments

  1. Tim-in-Alabama on July 31, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    This is a win, but pressure needs to continue to ensure more wins for the American people and not just wins for the Dem fat cats on Wall Street and the various hate groups that comprise the Dem Party. This is also a win because it shows how weak the Potted Plant President is, and he surely will be pouting during his upcoming bacchanalian birthday bash as he eats his peas.?There is nothing the TEA Party can do to keep Dems and some Republicans from hating them so as they work toward their goals they need to keep in mind that a touchdown at the end of a 10-play, 80-yard drive is worth just as much as an 80-yard TD bomb. In the game of political field position, the GOP is in control.



    • ricbee on August 1, 2011 at 10:43 pm

      I want the TEA party to be in control. The GOP is just as bad as the Dems.



    • Tim-in-Alabama on August 3, 2011 at 1:05 pm

      Gotta win more elections.



  2. TomL on August 1, 2011 at 6:16 am

    What a load of BS. They need triggers to persuade them to do they’re jobs. Who loses if they don’t and they make the penalty cuts? The people do. In the real world if you don’t do your job the boss pulls the trigger?and your gone, its time for “We the People” ?to hand out pink slips.



  3. Plainvillian on August 1, 2011 at 9:14 am

    Nothing new here.? A reduced RATE of increase is still an INCREASE!?



    • GdavidH on August 1, 2011 at 9:27 am

      This is how anyone that follows how Washington works assumed it would work. At least I did.



  4. Steven on August 1, 2011 at 9:45 am

    I see we are going to cut Medicare, which our moms and dads and the disabled?are on by default hopefully with?their wrap around policies.??? This is exactly what Obama wanted to do before and now he has a vehicle to do that.?? Time for some history.

    What most of you may or may not realize is back in the 70s (when I sold insurance),? the insurance companies came out with products designed around Medicare and Social Security.? So when you became disabled your DI insurance, ?if you paid for one, ?or had one through your workplace, ?paid a full benefit up to the max for one year – the time it took to establish the Social Security benefit payout to you.? This was the begining of the end for the traditional DI Insurance?plan which some companies sold that paid up to a scheduled maximum regardless of SSDI.???

    Same with Medicare.? You would retire and go immediately on Medicare and again either through disability get a wrap around benefit or pay for one through one of the many carriers.? Thereby again reducing risk for insurance companies who had health policies post age 65 – these could then be eliminated.? If you were 65 your company health insurance would stop and you’d go on Medicare.?? You could then purchase a plan to…



    • Steven on August 1, 2011 at 9:54 am

      wrap around it.? So we now are in a?great position?for ObamaCare which is the elimination of Medicare thru selective reduction ie less money,? and you and I will be forced into it should Medicare vanish into history.?? I don’t think you’ll ever see again an affordable?private medical policy simply because we live much?longer and?use those services more these days than a while ago – unless there is some way to cheaply insure the routine things like office visits or include them as part?of the deductible.?? However,? lots of?grandmas and grandpas aren’t set up financially now to pay for those visits and tests so they and those of us about to retire?soon?would need a phase out of any intermediate insurance like a Medicare.??? Interesting enough though Medicaid isn’t taking any cuts…..why?



    • Dimsdale on August 1, 2011 at 11:15 am

      So ?bamacare is a “wraparound” policy of sorts, with difference being that it is a tourniquet applied around the neck.
      ?
      “We stopped the bleeding because the patient died…..”



  5. Steven on August 1, 2011 at 11:40 am

    No ObamaCare is IT.? Fini.? The End.? Maybe the private sector might come out with or adapt a Medicare supplimental plan to work with it, ?after all they did last time with both SS & Medicare.? The wrap around supplimental plans are the Major Medical type which pay after deductibles or pay the deductibles depending on which type you get.?? But the ObamaCare version doesn’t exist yet and who knows if it ever will.??My opinion is?no?Obama Care,??grandfather in everyone?using Medicare and phase it out for?future retirees who are now?under age 50 or some reasonable number.??? We need time for the Insurance Markets to respond with?reasonable products and?we shouldn’t pull the rug out on people whove paid into Medicare?already?or are about to retire.?? ?



  6. steve418r on August 1, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    I can not, for the life of me, understand why this country is on such a spending spree.? Working hard to get ahead is losing its value when all they want to do is demonize and punish you when you get there. Like working hard is a bad thing, and if you do the price to pay is to support the “down trodden”. Soon we will all be “down trodden” and there will be nobody left to work.



  7. ricbee on August 1, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    ?Is there any hope for our country?



  8. crystal4 on August 2, 2011 at 7:28 am

    Nope. We got hosed last night.



  9. Lynn on August 2, 2011 at 7:43 am

    Ricbee, so sad to see your passion for right fade. We(not RVO, the rest of the country)? tried the HOPE thingy in the last election. We need optimistic, blue collar ethic WORK, to turn this country around. Oh and perseverance, not one term but decades of correcting this administration. We have got to get behind one man and let nothing dissuade us to put the stake in O’s chest. No more vampires for President.



  10. Sad4CT on August 2, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    As I heard someone say on the radio today…?

    ‘ So instead of getting the Lamborghini, were getting the fully-loaded Mercedes even though we can only really afford a Honda Accord.’



  11. sammy22 on August 2, 2011 at 10:15 pm

    I bet somebody? in the 10% income bracket went out today and bought not only the Lamborghini, but the fully-loaded Mercedes too. That somebody was not me.



    • Dimsdale on August 5, 2011 at 8:42 am

      Reductio ad absurdum once again.



Obama Boehner 3

The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.

You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.

The site is not broken.