With the stroke of a pen on Tuesday, President Obama capped months of contentious wrangling over both the national debt and how the federal government spends its money. As is typical of many compromises, this one did not really satisfy anyone.
The result is that many of the hard decisions needed to truly get our fiscal house in order have been deferred to a later time. In this case, that later time is Thanksgiving, when a “super-committee” composed equally of House and Senate members, Republicans and Democrats, is to make recommendations on where to cut the budget to bring it in line with the $1.5 trillion in cuts the new law calls for. If the “super-committee” can’t agree on where to make those cuts, then they will be made automatically, 50 percent from the “security” side (which includes Defense spending) and 50 percent from entitlements (like Medicare).
