We all understand the necessity to compromise, but we would expect to enjoy benefits from such compromise that are commensurate to our superior leverage. Let’s review the scorecard of the debt deal:
Benefits for Democrats
- Obamacare is preserved and shielded from cuts
- Obama-era discretionary and mandatory spending levels are permanently enshrined
- All welfare programs are exempt even from baseline cuts
- After accruing $4 trillion in debt, Obama gets green light to run up an additional $2.1 trillion
- Obama doesn’t have to request another politically damaging debt increase – until after the election
- The creation of Supercommittee charged with deficit reduction, not spending cuts, opens the door for tax increases, while endangering Bush tax cuts – an opportunity they would have never enjoyed
- Failure of Supercommittee leads to automatic cuts in defense – an opportunity they would have never enjoyed
- Dems are not forced into transformational change with passage of BBA
- The deal overwrote the entire Ryan budget, obviating any further GOP leverage on budget policy for the rest of the year
Benefits for Republicans
- $917 billion in baseline discretionary cuts over 10 years
- The creation of 18th debt commission is somehow the Republican part of the deal
- There is a required vote on a BBA
- The only saving grace is Phil Gramm’s jujitsu plan to preempt sequestration with an alternative privileged amendment that repeals Obamacare with a simple majority. Will they have the guts to use it?
As The Hill reporter Molly Hooper noted last week, “Democrats’ Satan Sandwich is starting to taste pretty good.”