Ironic that the only taxes raised in the deal are on workers.

[kpete]

Most of the analysis you're seeing on the deal is only talking about what's IN the deal, not what was left out. So everyone is saying how "no taxes were raised," and how the deal may shave "only" 0.2% points off of growth next year, which is still a lot when you're dancing on the edge of another recession:

The budget deal tries to address these concerns by keeping spending cuts relatively modest at first — about $25 billion in 2012 and $47 billion in 2013 — before making much deeper reductions in the following eight years.

But these cuts will still have an impact, trimming 0.2 percentage points from economic growth next year, according to IHS Global Insight, an economic research group. That could be significant in an economy that grew only 1.3 percent in the spring, not enough to generate many jobs.

The phasing out of the payroll tax holiday and the unemployment benefit extension will remove six times as much money from the economy next year as the cuts programmed into the deal itself. That's huge. And conveniently for Republicans, could destroy a lot of jobs right before the election. But the administration says they're going to keep fighting for the benefits and payroll tax holiday extensions.

Right.


http://www.americablog.com/2011/08/deficit-deal-could-cut-gdp-by-15-points.html

[grahamhgreen]

1. Cutting our social programs IS raising our taxes - we pay the same for less!

[Bonhomme Richard]

2. Taxes are going up for everyone. Bet on it.

The simple fact is that States rely on Federal funding for a lot of programs from education, to infrastructure, to social services. Most of those programs have to continue and that money has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is going to be local property assessments, state income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax etc.