THE DEBT DEAL BY THE NUMBERS

$4 TRILLION
The amount bond rating agencies agree needs to be cut from the annual deficits over ten years to get our fiscal house in order

$3.2 TRILLION
The amount the original Republican debt reduction plan proposed.

$4.2 TRILLION
The amount President Obama countered the original Republican proposal with.
This would have consisted of a 4/1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases on the rich.

$2.2 TRILLION
The amount of debt reduction finally arrived at after the Republicans nearly drove America into default. Speaker Boehner used the Congressional Budget Office numbers as a baseline for the plan. The CBO’s numbers include the end of the George W. Bush tax give-a-ways to the rich which expire in 2012. Elimination of the Bush tax policies will cut the Federal Debt by $3.7 trillion over a decade.
In effect this works out to approximately a 1/2 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases on the rich.
Only 1% of the spending cuts come into play in 2012, the other 99% coming in the out years. Under the enforcement mechanism of the bill, Social Security, Medicare beneficiaries, food stamps and other low income programs are immune from cuts.

98%
Is what John Boehner is saying he got in this bill. If getting schooled by President Obama, and positioning the Republican Party in 2012 as the goon squad for millionaires and billionaires is what John Boehner wanted I think he actually got 100% of what he wanted.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheet-victory-bipartisan-compromise-economy-american-people

http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2011/08/upon-further-examination.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021517/US-debt-deal-Obama-declares-end-tax-breaks-wealthiest-Americans.html

http://www.editedforclarity.com/2011/08/01/debt-ceiling-deal-the-devil-is-in-the-details/#disqus_thread

Postscript: Within days of approval of the debt deal compromise the S&P rating agency downgraded the United States credit rating to AA from AAA. Had the Republican leadership accepted President Obama's original plan of a $4.2 trillion reduction in the federal debt over the next decade this downgrade would have been averted.
The strangle-hold the Tea Party has over the Republican Party has in this case exposed the American taxpayer to billions of dollars in increased interest payments due to this easily predictable lowering of our credit rating.
No sane American would deliberatly poisen their personel credit rating, but the Tea Party and the lack courage and failure of leadership in the Republican Party has poisened our nation's credit and credibility, and yet again handed the bill to the next generation.