Nothing for Everyone

It’s always very possible the “deal” will fail to get the votes. The only thing I will predict is that no one will like it.

Greg Sargent is calling the deal an unprecedented political victory for the GOP. I don’t know about “unprecedented”; I don’t know that it comes up to the level of the Bush tax cuts or the Iraq War resolution of October 2002. And I also suspect the Right will not be happy with it and that most of the Tea Party caucus will refuse to support it. I could be wrong about that, though.

The upside is that the Bush tax cuts are still set to expire and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are untouched. A big downside is that we could still be fighting over cutting this stuff before the current Congress expires. The “deal” creates a bipartisan committee that could do all sorts of mischief. Congress will vote on a balanced budget amendment, which I hope has no chance of passage.

And, of course, the economy will likely be worse off than it is now, although not as bad off as if the nation were to default.

Another downside is that for the rest of the week we’ll be subjected to no end of whining from the Left about how President Obama planned this outcome all along. Because, you know, he is magic and does whatever he wants.

See Ezra Klein, “A Deal That Found the Lowest Common Denominator” and “Democrats Will Lose Now. But They Can Win Later.”