"The way out of this box is to find different people than the ones currently in office"

[midnight]

"Future Congresses are not bound by the actions of previous Congresses. The more important question is whether you believe that THIS generation of Congressional leadership will work outside the lines of this agreement. Will these Democrats muster the gumption to break the spending caps, to allow all the Bush tax cuts to expire, etc., etc. I just don’t see it. I don’t see these Democrats, who have been parroting the language of austerity so much they have to believe at least some of it, will ever go beyond this agreement. They have made a virtue of paygo and Clinton’s balanced budgets for close to 20 years now. They are fiscal conservatives, the only ones in Washington to be precise. The Progressive Caucus budget reaches a surplus in 2021, albeit in a smarter way. They will live within the constraints of this paralyzing discretionary budget, which puts public investment at an appallingly low level."

"The way out of this box is to find different people than the ones currently in office"
"I don’t see any other way around that. This can start at the state level, actually. One of the worst aspects of this deal is the timing – in just a week, there are elections in Wisconsin that represents a true mass popular movement aligned with the Democratic Party, that happens to be fighting for workers’ rights. But everyone is overwhelmed with anger over this debt deal.

As an additional note, Jay Newton-Small’s piece today adds that the 2012 fiscal year budget will be “deemed” passed inside this deal. While that’s true, that doesn’t mean the appropriations will be completed in here. The caps will have been set but the specifics would need to be passed by September 30. And that’s another hostage-taking even for Republicans. One that they can use to their advantage to extract more concessions, whether on near-term cuts (the spending cap is not a floor) or policy riders.

I also think the trigger will wind up being more binding on Democrats than anyone thinks, particularly the White House, for the reasons I said before."http://firedoglake.com/

I don't understand this trigger thing, but it sounds like trouble down the road...

[JDPriestly]

1. 13 California Democrats voted for this awful bill.

And there were 13 California Democrats who voted for it - Karen Bass, Howard Berman, Lois Capps, Jim Costa, Susan Davis, Anna Eshoo, John Garamendi, Nancy Pelosi, Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Jackie Speier, and Mike Thompson.

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/kitty-felde/2011/08/01/votes-raising-debt-ceiling/

[midnight]

2. Why on earth did they... US companies are packing away record profits even as the economy falters

NEW YORK — Major US companies are packing away record profits even as the economy falters, unemployment remains high and the debt-ceiling crisis has shaken confidence in the country, analysts said.

In July, corporate giants such as 3M, Caterpillar, Goodyear, Microsoft and Apple reported all-time high revenues in the second quarter of 2011, though the stock market still slumped amid fears of an economic slowdown and a possible government default.

Of the companies in the S&P 500 list of large-cap firms which have reported their quarterly earnings to date, 72 percent have beaten analysts' forecasts, according to Standard & Poor's analyst Howard Silverblatt.http://activistnews.blogspot.com/


Do you think perhaps these record proftits could be shared with their country? Instead our party is voting to push more pain on us and let these guys enjoy all the winnings......

[Old Codger]

3. I believe

It was Samuel Clemens who said "Diapers and Politicians need to be changed often and for the same reason".

[classysassy]

12. Mr Twain was correct

there are 545 shitty pols in Washington.

[midnight]

4. This article says the tea party got rolled.

The Bars Go Up, Spending Goes Down
— By Kevin Drum| Mon Aug. 1, 2011 2:27 PM PDT
This chart has been making the rounds today. It's from Cato's Chris Edwards, who's pretty unhappy about the proposed spending cap in the debt ceiling deal:

Wait a minute, those bars are rising! Spending isn’t being cut at all. The “cuts” in the deal are only cuts from the CBO “baseline,” which is a Washington construct of ever-rising spending....No program or agency terminations are identified in the deal. None of the vast armada of federal subsidies are targeted for elimination. Old folks will continue to gorge themselves on inflated benefits paid for by young families and future generations.

Well, yeah, I guess that's right. The plan doesn't eliminate either the Education Department or Social Security. Still, just do a bit of arithmetic on those spending levels: they amount to an increase of 1.9% per year. That's almost certainly well below the future rate of inflation and population growth. If we actually stick to these caps, they represent a steady and consistent decrease in real per-capita spending, and that's the only fair way to look at it.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/budget-deal-doesnt-cut-spending/

I'm a bit suspicious of this article because it comes from CATO. And their director and financier is KOCH. So when Cato says the teaparty got rolled I don't believe him for a second...

David Koch is the chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a director of the Cato Institute and a trustee of the Reason Foundation.
In addition to providing funding to co-found the Cato Institute and the Mercatus Center, Charles Koch serves on the boards of both Mercatus and the Institute for Humane Studies.<16><17> Richard Fink, an executive vice president and director of Koch Industries, is president of two of the Koch Family Foundations as well as founder, president or director of numerous front groups the Koch foundations support.http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Industries

[Moostache]

5. As long as Cantor took a bath on betting FOR default, I have a moral victory of sorts...

THAT son of a bitch should be on trial for treason instead of sitting in the House of Representatives!

[blkmusclmachine]

6. They've had 30 years to game the system.

"Morning in America," indeed.

[cutlassmama]

7. Here's the way out:

-Quit giving our money to other countries in aid packages.
-Get our troops out of the middle east, and significantly cut back on troops in other countries.
-Quit letting it be profitable for American businesses to operate overseas

[dmallind]

9. Have you any idea how tiny the first item you mention is?

[Doctor_J]

8. Unless Citizens United is overturned, the only changes will be for the worse

we're fucked 6 ways to Sunday. This is not going to stop until we're a third world dictatorship, or the blood of the tyrants runs ankle-deep in the streets.

[Kurmudgeon]

10. We had different people in office in 2008, then screwed it up in 2010.

[BNJMN]

11. The current Progressive Caucus is BIGGER than the Tea Party Caucus...but

we have the Leader, some schmuck in a bow tie from Oregon, saying that raising the retirement age is okay because, y'know 'people will probably be living longer by that time anyways'. Then when a certain msnbc talking head strongly, consistently disagrees with the Grand Poo Bah Leader of the Progressive Leader, he gets sacked days later for his 'tone'.

Go figure.

[grasswire]

13. who the hell are you talking about? n/t

[Chan790]

14. Cenk, I'm assuming.

I thought he was an ass in ass's clothing so I wasn't sad to be him let go but a lot of other people were.