Obama smiling

Obama is smiling about the debt ceiling "limit" plan that the Democrats and moderate Republicans have put forward. He didn't get his trillion dollar tax increase, but tax increases are still possible under the plan because Congress can consider them in step three deficit reduction measures. Also, since this deal does not address the Bush tax cuts, those rates will probably be allowed to expire so that taxes actually will go up, but only on earned income to allow the truly rich to avoid taxes. Obama has never been concerned about the national debt, and this "limit" plan is actually a license to spend.

House Minority Leader Pelosi, who couldn't show the public or any other Representatives what was in Obamacare, or even let anyone read it until they passed it, hypocritically refused to comment on the debt deal until she had seen it in writing. After reading it, Pelosi complained that the debt deal raised no revenue from the rich. If Pelosi is that concerned, maybe she could just donate back some of that stimulus money which apparently somehow stimulated her personal net worth by 62 percent last year alone with income probably exempt from all those tax increases she favors. Funny how a person with "only" 35 Million Dollars isn't one of those rich people who can afford to pay more.

House Majority Leader Boehner says, "It's all spending cuts." That is only true if you count spending cuts as Washington does, which is to reduce increases in spending. In reality, it is very hard to find any real spending cuts in this package other than cuts to the military, which is frightening given the number of theaters in various parts of the world our government is committed to presently, and the number of countries involved in internal violence which could engulf our military resources at any time. Liberals and moderates are always happy to engage the U.S. militarily, but also always prefer to pretend that the military does not need to exist.

This debt deal is actually the largest debt ceiling increase in history, following on the back of last year's largest debt ceiling increase in history. According to a cnsnews article, records show that the next largest increases in debt occurred under the Presidencies of "W" Bush and Bush, Sr., both moderate Republicans.

It is likely that the leadership of both parties want to pass a massive debt ceiling increase because they hope the public will forget about the issue by election time, and the leadership of neither party has any desire, stomach, or backbone for actually controlling spending.