Stories to Watch: 8/1/11

Did you hear about this debt limit thing? Turns out people don't like it much. Now here's the news...


Robert Reich hates the debt limit deal.


David Frum hates the debt limit deal.


Paul Krugman hates the debt limit deal.


Steve Benen hates the debt limit deal.


Robert Borosage hates the debt limit deal.


Mittens Romney hates the debt limit deal.


The New York Times editorial board hates the debt limit deal.


Jonathan Chait hates the debt limit deal.


Kevin Drum hates the debt limit deal.


John Bolton hates the debt limit deal.


Sen. Bernie Sanders hates the debt limit deal.


Erick Erickson hates the debt limit deal.


Dean Baker hates the debt limit deal.


Finally, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver hates the debt limit deal.

This may be the least popular piece of legislation to move through congress in your lifetime. What a dog.

Related articles

• US debt crisis: angry Democrats turn their fire on Obama (telegraph.co.uk)
• Obama Surrenders (politicalwire.com)
• Deficit Debacle: Live Blog on the Murder of Middle Class America (skydancingblog.com)
• Caucus Video: The Politics of the Debt Deal (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com)

Griper Blade: The Lousy Deal

We've got a debt deal and it's just the best thing ever! Check out how super-excited the White House is about the whole thing. If we go to the White House website, we learn that it's a "Win for the Economy and Budget Discipline," that the deal "Removes Cloud of Uncertainty," and that the whole thing's a trip through Bipartisan Happy-Land, where gumdrops grow on sugarplum trees and everything is made wonderful by the magical power of Centrism. Yay!

Of course, if we talk to Mean Old Mister Knows-What-the-Hell-He's-Talking-About, then the magic seems to evaporate.

Crooks and Liars:

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman warned Sunday that proposed spending cuts in a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling would end up hurting the economy.

"From the perspective of a rational person, we shouldn't even be talking about spending cuts at all now," Krugman told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "We have nine percent unemployment. These spending cuts are going to worsen unemployment... If you have a situation in which you are permanently going to raise the unemployment rate -- which is what this is going to do -- that's actually going to reduce future revenues."...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]