Even though Tea Party members may not like the final deal, they can surely declare victory for getting congress to deal with fixing the country’s outrageous debt situation. They set the terms of the debate where neither establishment GOPers nor Democrats wanted to go.It’s not a perfect fix, far from it. But, it’s a small step in the right direction.
The big loser is President Obama who stayed on the sidelines and showed just how incompetent he is as president. Next on the agenda is voting him out of office.
The Huffington Post
President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders reached historic agreement Sunday night on a compromise to permit vital U.S. borrowing by the Treasury in exchange for more than $2 trillion in long-term spending cuts.
Officials said Republican Speaker John Boehner telephoned Obama at mid-evening to say the agreement had been struck.
Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid said that both his party and opposition Republicans gave more ground than they wanted to. He said it'll take members of both political parties to pass the measure.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the pact "will ensure significant cuts in Washington spending" and he assured the markets that a first-ever default on U.S. obligations won't occur.
Both the leaders said they will brief their colleagues tomorrow on the details of the agreement.
More here
Memeorandum
TPM
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has signed off on a deal to raise the debt limit pending the approval of his caucus -- and of course if can win the backing of Senate GOP leaders and then a majority of the House.
His spokesman confirms that Reid will present the deal to his caucus shortly, with the hope of holding a vote on it Sunday night, giving House leaders some running room to pass the plan before the nation's borrowing authority expires late Tuesday.
The deal works like this:
It guarantees the debt limit will be hiked by $2.4 trillion. Immediately upon enactment of the plan, the Treasury will be granted $400 billion of new borrowing authority, after which President Obama will be allowed to extend the debt limit by $500 billion, subject to a vote of disapproval by Congress.
That initial $900 billion will be paired with $900 billion of discretionary spending cuts, first identified in a weeks-old bipartisan working group led by Vice President Joe Biden, which will be spread out over 10 years.
Obama will later be able to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, again subject to a vote of disapproval by Congress.
That will be paired with the formation of a Congressional committee tasked with reducing deficits by a minimum of $1.2 trillion. That reduction can come from spending cuts, tax increases or a mixture thereof
More here
Memeorandum
There's no smoke and mirrors here! There's a real gal behind the blog: she is none other than Gian Faye Paguirigan! She describes herself as a web enthusiast: "a normal 19-year old geek on the block who discovered the Internet long ago" - she is musically gifted, multi-talented, loves cats and loves to watch the stars (as in astronomy!) She's also into "playing with codes, doing programming and spending time tweaking things on the web and on her computer."
