What is your opinion of the budget/deb ceiling "breakthrough"?

Well the politicians have finally come to a deal on the debt ceiling. For a few months now they’ve been arguing back and forth, coming up with some ridiculous plans, occasionally looking like they would agree on a landmark amazing plans, and most recently just about convincing us all they were going to completely blow it and default on the governments debts.

Here’s the plan in a nutshell:
-The debt ceiling itself would be raised $2.1 – $2.4 trillion (the final # depending on how a congressional committee does later) from its current standing of $14.3 trillion. At current spending levels this would sustain the US government into early 2013.

Earlier Republican plans had called for a smaller increase which would have to be supplemented with another increase during “election time” which many Democrats feared would be a bad idea (highly politicized, very contentious, congress afraid to vote on something that might actually let people know how they feel about things so close to an election).

-The budget would be cut by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. Of that money roughly $1 trillion would be immediate spending cuts (split roughly 50/50 between discretionary and military spending). The remaining $1.4 trillion would be determined by a bipartisan committee from both houses of congress, which would have to come up with a plan by the end of this year, and would be subject to an up or down vote (no filibustering or anything like that allowed). If the money selected by the committee failed to pass an up or down vote, then the $1.4 trillion would be cut 50/50 again from discretionary and military spending, starting in 2013.

Earlier plans from far right Republicans had called for cuts of as much as $11 trillion (which would be downright draconian imo), to the Gang of Six plan (or grand deal plan) which would be just above $4 trillion…. or the most recent partisan plans which both had between $1—$2 trillion in cuts.

The immediate cuts basically amount to what Dems and Repubs have agreed to for months now, the “token cuts.” The long term cuts, are completely undefined, but at least are mandated.

-A separate “balanced budget” will be allowed to go to congress for an up or down vote (in otherwords it won’t be held up in committee’s or by filibusters) by the end of the year. However, none of the rest of the deal is contingent on said BB bill passing congress and being signed into law. In essence, the BB bill is doomed to failure due to resistance (largely from the Dems and the President). But this at least lets the vote take place and gets the Dems on record as resisting it (basically it was a gift to the Republicans to give them campaign fodder).

Personally, I am satisfied but not happy with the outcome of all this budget talk. I think they had a real chance to actually fix our governments budget with tax and entitlement reforms…. and they just left it on the table. The budget cuts here are helpful sure, but they alone won’t fix the problem… and I fear we will never be so close to being able to fix the real problems again.

What do you think?