Oh, so NOW the media is talking about why it's not time to cut spending?

[Patiod]

Why wasn't this guy on ALL the shows on "super liberal" NPR all last month?

Why was today the first time I heard him - when he was interviewed on "Here and Now"?

Why, during all the coverage, didn't we hear this point of view from a very credible economics writer from the "Economist" and the WSJ (hardly left wing commie outlets)? Why wasn't he on all the "liberal" media outlets, complaining that 20% of the country was about to drive the whole damn place over a cliff?

"If Republicans are the clear winner from this deal, the economy is the loser. An ideal deficit-reduction package would have coupled near-term stimulus with long-term consolidation that stabilised then reduced the debt as a share of GDP. This deal certainly doesn’t do the first and it’s unclear that it will do the second. True, it does not add significant new fiscal tightening: total discretionary spending would be a mere $7 billion lower in fiscal 2012 and $3 billion in fiscal 2013 than current levels, according to a Democratic Senate fact sheet. On the other hand fiscal policy is already set to tighten automatically. Mr Obama had hoped to extend the payroll tax cut as part of the deal. He may yet do so during the Congressional negotiations, but that seems a fading prospect. It is striking that last Friday’s appallingly weak GDP data did nothing to shape the deal any further in the direction of near-term stimulus."

[Angry Dragon]

1. Because that was not the message they wanted to get out

[emulatorloo]

2. The media is disgusting. They are in collusion with the Republican party

[DevonRex]

3. I listened to a professor named Portes at London School of Economics today.

He said the UK is heading definitely for a recession because it cut too much too fast too soon. But that the good news is that the USA didn't since it will be
Spread over 10 years and most likely won't happen as the deal was written anyway.

It was an encouraging.

[Patiod]

4. That's a relief. But why wasn't this discussed before today?

I have NPR on all day, every day, and just didn't hear it. And if "super liberal" (translation: desperately centrist) NPR isn't giving these people a platform, no one is.

[DevonRex]

5. I think it serves the conservatives ATP to make the economy

look bad. And obviously you have seen NPR move to the right. Mostly I think this is a very different scenario than we've ever been in before. If you'll notice, every country is worried about debt at the moment. Central banks are demanding that sovereign debt be addressed immediately with all sorts of restructuring, even balanced budget amendments as in the case of Italy today.

So, most of the talking heads just don't know wtf is going on.

[EFerrari]

6. There are no American economists who seem to agree with that.

Dean Baker, Krugman, Hudson, Reich all are more pessimistic than that. Is the jobs report out yet today?

[DevonRex]

7. Yes. It was a little better at 9.1. I think most of those economists

were dealing as much with the perception that the deal gave that the US was going to cease stimulating the economy and actually cut deeply. That perception did have some effect on the market yesterday. But the reality is that compared to other countries we are cutting much more slowly. Europe could be in deep trouble, depending on how the ECB covers the debts of Italy and Spain.

[jeff47]

9. You need to read below the headline. It was not better.

Employment went from 9.2% to 9.1% because ~180,000 people gave up looking for work.

That's not better.

[AndyTiedye]

8. Having Forced Obama to Accept the Deal, They Can Now Criticize It

as part of the "Blame Obama for the recession" initiative.

[butterfly77]

10. They are scared as hell now...`

investors are scared as hell,and a lot of these people now know that the TEABAGGERS are full of it.

[gratuitous]

11. And what were the Democrats doing, anyway?

I worked for support enforcement many years ago, and I can't tell you how many discussions I had or heard with folks behind in their child support payments where their first topic was visitation, and how they hadn't seen their kids in months. Each time we had to patiently explain that we were talking about support payments here, not visitation. That was a wholly separate subject.

Similarly, the Democrats should have stayed on the debt ceiling, and the need to raise it to pay for expenditures already authorized and made. You want to talk cuts? All right, but at this time, we're talking about a routine matter of raising the debt limit, something both parties have done for decades. If spending is such an important issue, then let's take it up separately, and not try to forge some non-existent tie between future spending and present obligations.

We could have and should have fought these assholes sound bite for sound bite, with the added advantage of being correct. Instead, the Democrats allowed debt limits to be tied to future budgeting, a devil's bargain that serves no one, and that will be jettisoned the second the Republicans have accrued more power. At that time, Republicans will casually deny any connection between budgets and debt limits, and the Democrats won't be able to remember or make the public remember that the Republicans argued exactly the opposite back in 2011.