I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

The headline in the New York Times wrongly says now that the debt deal is signed, the battle is over:

"The Senate voted Tuesday to raise the government's debt ceiling and cut trillions of dollars from its spending, concluding a long and fractious partisan battle just hours before the government's borrowing authority was set to run out."

Dream on. Nothing has been concluded, the next phase is just around the corner:

"On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the conversation quickly shifted to a powerful new committee that will be created to recommend ways to reduce deficits by a total of at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Congressional leaders have two weeks to appoint the 12 members, who are supposed to come up with an ambitious deficit-reduction package by Nov. 23."  

Here's the good news, if you can call it that. The best-case scenario for the super committee is deadlock, a 6 to 6 vote on everything. That's as good as it can get. (This is just my opinion, but I think that's the desired outcome. Then the "trigger" is pulled and the across-the-board cuts kick in. Republicans control 1/3 of the government but they get half of the seats at the table? What's wrong with this picture?). Boehner and McConnell have already said they will appoint nothing but anti-taxers to the committee. Nancy Pelosi said her three appointees will be staunch opponents of any cuts to "entitlements" (damn I hate that word, somebody come up with something better. Please). That leaves Reid's three choices and here's where it gets scary:

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will also appoint three members to the committee. And if even a single one of them is willing to cut into Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits, then Pelosi's efforts won't really matter -- the committee's report can be approved by a bare majority of its 12 members."

After signing The Shi**y Deal yesterday...

"...President Obama set out...to reclaim the initiative on the economy, promising a new effort to spur job creation while seeking to position himself as a proven voice of reason in an era of ideological overreach...Mr. Obama shifted quickly to pushing Congress to adopt a raft of familiar measures to stimulate the flagging economy, including extending the payroll tax suspension for workers, beefing up benefits for the unemployed, approving trade agreements and investing in infrastructure projects."

First of all, few things are more oxymoronic--or just plain moronic--than job creation through free trade agreements, unless you mean creating jobs in South Korea, that is. As for the rest of it, Robert Reich points out that because of the corner the president has painted himself into the other items on the list are next to impossible to achieve:

"He says he wants to extend tax cuts for middle class families and make sure the jobless get unemployment benefits.

Fine, but the new deal won't let him. He'll have to go back to Congress after the recess (five weeks from now) and round up enough votes to override the budget caps that now restrict spending. What are the odds? Maybe a little higher than zero.

He says he wants an "infrastructure bank" that would borrow money from private capital markets to pay private contractors to rebuild our nations roads, bridges, airports, and everything else that's falling apart.

Fine, but the new deal he just signed may not let him do this either - if the infrastructure bank relies on federal funds or even federal loan guarantees to attract private money. The only way he could create an infrastructure bank without sweetening the pot would be by privatizing all the new infrastructure. That means toll roads and toll bridges, user-fee airports, and entry fees everywhere else.

...the deal he just signed makes it impossible for the President and Democrats to launch any major jobs program - no WPA or Civilian Conservation Corps, no major lending program to cash-starved states and locales, no new help for distressed homeowners, and so on. Nada."

David Dayen at Firedoglake has a piece today about where Boehner and the Republicans got their inspiration for holding the debt ceiling hostage--from Senate Democrats:

"That happened at the end of 2009, when Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Mark Warner and Joe Lieberman threatened to not increase the debt limit if they didn't get in place a fiscal commission that would recommend spending and entitlement cuts. That's right, Democrats started the hijacking of the debt limit. Barely anybody remembers this, but it set the stage for the deal being voted on today."

Bayh isn't in the Senate any more, but if you see any of the others appointed to the joint committee, buckle up.

Dayen also has a post at The American Prospect titled "Turning Points: Five chances to avoid the debt-ceiling fight Obama missed" which is worth reading.

And if all that isn't depressing enough, read all about the Secret Patriot Act:

"Two Senators have been warning for months that the government has a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act so broad that it amounts to an entirely different law -- one that gives the feds massive domestic surveillance powers, and keeps the rest of us in the dark about the snooping.

"There is a significant discrepancy between what most Americans - including many members of Congress - think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and how government officials interpret that same law," wrote the Senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. "We believe that most members of the American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance law is being interpreted in secret. "

Pass the Paxil, please.