Recommended: The Real Budget Deal

Robert Samuelson has an interesting article over on the RealClearPolitics site: The Real Budget Deal.  He argues (a) that the deal will make hardly any difference to either the economy or the debt, and (b) that although the Republicans won (for the moment) on the "no new taxes" issue, the liberals actually won far more by protecting their entitlement programs from any cuts. Of course, if one removes the entitlements from the equation, all the cuts have to come from defense and discretionary spending, which is all that is left.  It is an interesting perspective, and more thoughtful than most of what has been written on either side of the political divide in the past few days.