Wonkbook: Why liberals should thank Eric Cantor

[ej510]

I knew the White House wanted a compromise on the debt ceiling. I just didn't expect them to do quite so much, well, compromising.

Here's what appears to have been in the $4 trillion deal they offered the Republicans: A two-year increase in the Medicare eligibility age. Chained-CPI, which amounts to a $200 billion cut to Social Security benefits. A tax-reform component that would raise $800 billion and preempt the expiration of the Bush tax cuts -- which would mean, for those following along at home, that the deal would only include half as much revenue as the fiscal commission recommended, and when you add the effect of making the Bush tax cuts a permanent part of the code, would net out to a tax cut of more than $3 trillion when compared to current law.

That last bit apparently killed the deal. It But it was actually the biggest concession on the table. Currently, Democrats are bargaining for some revenues now, with the option of forcing much more in revenues later. All they need to do to get $4 trillion in revenues next year is fail to come to an agreement with the Republican Party. And is there anything Congress is better at than not agreeing?

The deal Obama offered Boehner would've traded away the option to force much more in revenues later in order to get slightly more in revenues now. And it would have thrown in a slew of entitlement cuts and spending cuts as a sweetener.

Cont'd at the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-why-liberals-should-thank-eric-cantor/2011/07/12/gIQAiV4RAI_blog.html

[villager]

1. So we're lucky the GOP refused Obama's entirely shitty deal, then eh?

Happy days are here again.

[existentialist]

2. OK

First, thank-you for a concise summary of the nuts and bolts of the offer.

Second, do you think that, irrespective of the terms offered, that the real reason the Republicans balked is, as stated by McConnell, that the most important item on the Republican agenda is defeating Obama irrespective of all other issues?

Third, if your answer to the question above is yes, do you think it will work, or will the public see through the Republicans and their positions for what they are to the extent that it will backfire?