The tax cuts are the problem
Don't you people see that this is all a charade! conservatives have now achieved a 'permanent' extension of those disastrous tax cuts which were originally conceived to lessen the taxes paid by the rich, not the middle class or the poor. The small tax increments at the top barely makes a difference when you consider that the other brackets have stayed the same. If not for these lying, cheating, manipulating conservatives the bush tax cuts would have never happened in the first place. Military spending wouldn't have swelled into the monster it is and revenue would have been high enough to guarantee a substantial surplus.
In a few months it will all begin again, and this time progressives will have a strategic disadvantage that will make it impossible to preserve spending on social programs. These social programs are not 'entitlements.' That is a term that was given to them in an attempt to demean those who rely on them and our society has caved. Unless we regard social programs as a human right, significantly reduce military spending and increase taxes to the rate they should be it can not be denied that conservatives won.