The Enforcement Mechanism Complements the Forcing Event Already In Law - the Expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts - To Create Pressure for a Balanced Deal: The Bush tax cuts expire as of 1/1/2013, the same date that the spending sequester would go into effect. These two events together will force balanced deficit reduction. Absent a balanced deal, it would enable the President to use his veto pen to ensure nearly $1 trillion in additional deficit reduction by not extending the high-income tax cuts.

If the veto pen comes out, it's going to veto an extension of all the tax cuts, not just the high-income ones.  The WH statement here is just blatantly false.

Of course they posture then too, so really, it is all a waste of time.

The Republican and Democratic Parties are more unified now than ever -- they are both entirely beholden to big money and nothing or no one else.

I realize that re-electing this duplicitous, immoral, con artist is more important than life itself, but first, may I ask you something? Do you drink? I mean, do you drink excessively, and have you lifted the glass a few too many times tonight?

If not, here's a second question: is Obama a deaf-mute? Is he the President, or a sofa surfing, popcorn eating spectator? In the far reaches of that echo chamber that masquerades as a mind, did you ever, even one time, consider that Obama, while he has totally & completely abdicated & surrendered his role as this country's leader, could try to teach the public about the issues we're discussing here? This guy had the ability to mesmerize & brainwash a majority of voters  into electing him to the Presidency, but laying out the issues to the American public is just too incredibly difficult?

Obama, supposedly, wants to do good things for the people; The Republicans want to destroy the people's lives and their futures. A six year old could get that message out there, but for this Harvard Law Review President, its simply impossible.

My God, we're not talking Mensa here, but for Obama, he seems to belong to "Densa."

Jeez, I wonder if he could sell food to starving people?

Polls and pollsters do the same.

In other words, garbage in, garbage out.

He could have educated the public on how our monetary, fiscal and budgetary system works, explained why the US budget is not at all like a household budget.  

He could have explained what "sovereign in our own currency" means.

He could have harnessed the power of government to create a program for mortgage relief that acknowledged the pernicious role the financial industry played in the whole mess, allowing as many people as possible to stay in their homes, providing much more stability in the housing market.

He could have made the argument for raising the ceiling on wages subject to Social Security as a way to extend its solvency.

He could have made putting people back to work as Priority No. 1, building on the power of government to step in and create the conditions that lead to improvements in the quality of people's lives.

But first, he would have had to believe in all of these things, and he doesn't.  He pays lip service to them, sprinkles the code phrases into his speeches and comments, but there's nothing to back it up.  He throws bones to people and expects them to be happy that he talks about what people need, but that's the extent of his interest.  He walks away, goes behind closed doors and back to what he intended to do all along - and it was never anything close to what the people wanted.

It's like this whole business about the current tax rates: he says he wants to make the wealthy pay more, but when it comes time to fish or cut bait, he gives them up.

The Republicans have already announced that the hostage-taking will now be a regular thing - they're not going to play nice now that they've gotten 98% of what they wanted in this go-round.  And they're going to do it because they can, because Obama played along, because he and other Democrats made the first move.

Obama's out there talking about how this deal is a win for the economy - but what's his game plan when it proves not to be?  What then?  What else does he give away, how much more will ordinary, average people have to "sacrifice" so a Democratic president can keep selling Republican policy?

Reading your comments is like being trapped in talking-point land, like you're reading off a teleprompter with no understanding of what you're saying, and with no interest in the details of the policies.  It's been suggested to you more times than I can count that you take the time to educate yourself, but it's clear you believe you get all you need to know from polls.  

You can keep coming here and belittling the liberal position, but this isn't the kind of crowd that responds well to that tactic; in fact, I would guess that the more you put it down, the more people realize how deeply they believe in the liberal position, and how important it is to keep it alive - even if all around are those who want to kill it.

You argue as if we were a country ruled by referendum.  

If so the ACA would never have passed.

Guess what, most Americans support revenue increases in a deal like this.  That's why Obama mentioned it all the time.  But did that come to pass.  No!

Politics is about more than majority rule in polls (which can fluctuate significantly).

I think ruffian points at something important above - maybe Obama's not the bad negotiator, progressives are.  

Personally, Obama could've had a clean debt ceiling bill when McConnell brought it up originally.  Getting some degree of deficit reduction done was important to him in terms of policy though, so I don't think that route was explored as thoroughly as it could have been.

I recall you saying you would be on here celebrating that if it had happened.  Instead, you're coming up with apologias for Obama, again.

I suppose that at least suggests you realize something is wrong.

I know the conventional wisdom here is that if we simply had a bigger stimulus or a different kind of stimulus, we could have avoided our current predicament, but I'm unconvinced. I think our underlying problem is far more structural, and one that no amount of stimulus is going to fix. Put simply, we're getting much too productive.

Automation is steadily eating away at the value of labor. Once upon a time, the world really did need ditch diggers, but these days all you need is one guy with a backhoe. This wasn't so bad when it was just ditch-diggers that were being replaced, but as computers have gotten more sophisticated, the number of people they displace grows ever larger. I should know...I'm a programmer. The software I've written over the last 7 years has eliminated at least 20 positions at my office over time. They weren't glamorous jobs by any means, but they handed out a regular pay check and benefits. Now a computer does it all. And there are lots and lots of guys like me out there.

Lots of good, strong things were said yesterday, but then the person voted FOR the Obama abomination.

I watch Jackson-Lee's speech, and I would have sworn she was going to vote NO.  But she voted Yes.

14 House Dems who sent a letter strongly denouncing the legislation voted Yes.