After months of wrangling over the budget, President Obama and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle finally hammered out a compromise agreement tonight that would increase U.S. borrowing power by raising the debt ceiling while cutting at least $2.4 trillion in federal spending over the next 10 years.
Now they just have to sell it to the rest of Congress--both Republicans and Democrats--and convince the American people that it serves their long-term interests.
Among the things that could make that a hard sell, along with Medicare and defense cuts, are the ways the proposed agreement would undermine environmental protections and increase public health risks.
The proposal includes dozens of provisions that reduce or eliminate funding needed to regulate polluters, manage public lands effectively, protect endangered species and habitats, and oversee or restrict mining operations--from mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia to uranium mining at the Grand Canyon.
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More to the point, this compromise fails to address the real problem and therefore the very existence of the USA is in jeopardy. We have already fallen off the cliff of financial stability. The ground is 14 1/2 trillion feet away and they had the good sense to bring it a lousy 2.4 trillion feet closer. BFD. Like the iron worker who fell off the 89 th floor and was asked by a guy on the 75th floor as he dropped past: “How’s it going?”– The falling guy shouted back, “So far, so good.” It’s not the fall that gets you– it’s the sudden stop at the bottom.