As I said, we need to accept the best Republicans can do. This deal looks like they leveraged what pull they had frankly better than I expected. This is a good deal, that sets the stage for something serious down the road.
We need to be clear, though, as to what is being proposed. As I understand the matter, we are cutting not quite $1 trillion in DISCRETIONARY spending over the next decade. What needs to be undestood is that in establishing budgetary projections, certain things like Medicare and Social Security simply are not budgetted. They respond to demographics, not acts of Congress. It is therefore called “non-discretionary” spending, and of course has long been called the “third rail” of politics, since grumpy old people vote, and everybody else wants something for nothing.
We will further vote at some future point on whether or not we might perhaps actually consider sort of touching the third rail. Much easier: sending a Balancd Budget Amendment to the States. That commits no one to anything. Ergo I assume the $1 trillion is it.
Therefore, in exchange for what I assume is the increase to whatever it was Obama wanted–$14.x trillion–he gets to borrow something over a trilloin NOW, in exchange for cuts projected over a decade in which our overall increase in indebtedness will “only” be 6-9 trillion dollars, versus the 7-10 that had been projected. This, assuming no major economic disruptions (as for example a bond downgrade, or the implementation of Obamacare).
Now, I am not complaining. I think the Republican leadership got what they could. Politics is the art of the possible, not the impossible. The task of changing politics, logically then, is changing what is possible. That is the task for GOP organizers and thsoe running for office in 2012, and those who support them.