Austerity it is!

Another aspect of the Debt Ceiling Surrender by the Democrats that I haven't really written about is this: in the short term, while the economy is still in the crapper, we're moving to an austerity budget.  Deficits are going down, though it's not clear by how much yet- it's the opposite of stimulus.

So what I expect to see in the next two years is continued sluggish growth and high unemployment if we're lucky, and a new recession if we're not.

And here's the best part: conservatives can legitimately keep blaming Obama for it!  He's going to sign an austerity budget, but of course not one that's austere enough for their tastes.  Then while I'm arguing that we should have done more stimulus, they'll argue that Democrats controlled the Presidency and the Senate and passed a bill that they said would be good for the country, and it's not.  They'll campaign in 2012 on the talking point that not enough austerity is continuing to cause slow job growth, and Americans are going to listen- after all, this stuff is complicated and people don't have the patience to follow macroeconomic policy, but they'll react to this message: Obama bargained for this, he said we needed to "tighten our belts", and it didn't work.  Time for someone else to try.  President Romney or Bachman is going to urge us to tighten our belts more- none of that sissy tightening BHO proposed!

There could be one other hope in 2012: get progressives jazzed up and excited and turning out in high numbers, as GWB did with evangelicals during his campaigns.  But with this deal and with the President's rhetoric leading up to it, Obama loses the Left.

I can't vote for this guy again.  He's the worst negotiator in the history of politics.