The president and Congressional leaders reached an agreement on raising the nation's debt ceiling that included dramatic concessions to conservative political forces and reflected the schism between President Obama and the House, and with liberal elements of his own party.
From David Rogers in Politico:"With their backs to the wall, the White House and congressional leaders reached a landmark debt ceiling deal Sunday night after weeks of confrontation that pushed the nation to the brink of default and dramatized the huge divide between the Republican House and President Barack Obama."
"Obama won greater certainty in managing the Treasury’s borrowing needs and committed himself to at least $2.4 trillion in new deficit reduction but without ever getting any concession from the GOP on accepting new tax revenues as part of the debt equation."
"Much still depends on the success of a new joint committee charged with reporting back major savings to Congress before Thanksgiving. But for the second time this year, the president has had to yield ground on domestic appropriations, and the result is a real change in the direction and ambitions of government."
Whatever happens with the proposed deal -- it still needs to be approved in Congress -- members of one group already are shaking their heads -- the states.
From the AP's Susan Haigh and Dinesh Ramde: "While the details of the spending cuts to states remain unclear, lawmakers from both parties have discussed the need to cut or impose caps on so-called discretionary spending over the next decade."
"That could mean wide-ranging cuts in federal aid to states, affecting everything from the Head Start school readiness program, Meals on Wheels and worker training initiatives to funding for transit agencies and education grants that serve disabled children."
"There also was concern among governors, state lawmakers and state agency heads that Congress would make deep reductions or changes in federal aid for health services for the needy, most notably through Medicaid. That could shift more of the costs onto states that already are having trouble balancing their budgets."
"We have the potential for disaster should there be a major realignment in federal funding that results in a cost shift to states," said Nevada state Sen. Sheila Leslie, a Democrat from Reno who recently discussed the issue with Obama administration officials in Washington. "In short, we are teetering on the edge right now, and a cost shift could send us over the cliff."
Another question in the debt-ceiling discussion, on the roller coaster from spending to cuts: What will be the impact on the American economy? The NY Times' Binyamin Appelbaum and Catherine Rampell tell the tale.
"The emerging outlines of a deal to cut spending by at least $2.4 trillion over 10 years, with a multibillion-dollar down payment later this year, would complete an about-face in the federal government’s role from outsize spending in the immediate aftermath of the recession to outsize cuts in the future."
"Last week brought the disconcerting news that the economy grew no faster than the population during the first six months of the year, in part because of spending cuts by state and local governments. Now the federal government is cutting, too."
“Unemployment will be higher than it would have been otherwise,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of the bond investment firm Pimco, said Sunday on ABC. “Growth will be lower than it would be otherwise. And inequality will be worse than it would be otherwise.”
Meanwhile, on a happier note, teachers from China are coming to the U.S. to teach Mandarin -- and everybody seems to be happy. From Ricardo Lopez in the LA Times.
"In a few weeks, 176 Chinese teachers will head to kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms across the country, from rural Kentucky towns to the tidy suburbs of Salt Lake City. Only two will remain in California, assigned to schools in Redding and Ojai."
"Most had never before left China. They had come armed with hopes of succeeding in the classroom, with fears that American students would be difficult to manage and with impressions of U.S. culture based on a diet heavy in Hollywood films."
"The guest teacher program, started in 2007 and partly funded by the federal language initiative, Startalk, is an effort by the College Board and the Chinese government's Chinese Language Council International, also known as Hanban. The agencies want to expand Chinese instruction in the United States. UCLA's Confucius Institute is in its second year of hosting the program."
And from our "Love and Marriage" file comes the tangled tale of a man who was set up by two floozies for a DUI bust, but it was all part of a larger plot involving the guy's divorce. And some corrupt cops also may have played a role, too. Phew...
"Deep down, Dave Dutcher -- unassuming aeronautics engineer, father of three, recently split from his wife -- suspected that his Match.com sweetheart was too good to be true. And when a wildly flirtatious second date ended in a DUI, Dutcher wondered whether his ex-wife was somehow connected to the woman who had fed him shots and invited him hot-tubbing with an equally coquettish friend."
"Then, two years later, a major police corruption scandal centered on a Concord private investigator exploded, and a prosecutor confirmed Dutcher's suspicions: He had been set up."
"Now, on Monday, in a Contra Costa County courtroom, Dutcher will get his first chance at redemption: A judge will consider whether the stain from that night -- one of the five cases known as Contra Costa County's "dirty DUIs" -- unfairly tinged his divorce settlement. And prosecutors have also taken the extraordinary position that they will not stand in the way if Dutcher wants to withdraw his no contest plea -- two years later -- and ask a judge to wipe the crime from his record."
