Originally published on the Office of Management and Budget blog and picked up here off the Treasury Blog… the magic number of deficit reduced is $737 billion.

Put into perspective.

That total is for the entire span ranging from 2013 to 2022, covering this presidential term and the next two.

This is compared to the $4 Trillion Grand deal that was agreed to by everyone back in August 2011, then scuttled by Paul Ryan (Romney’s VP pick), who walked out of the agreement taking the Tea Party Republicans with him… The agreement was there, it was right there on the table; Obama had signed on. Democrats in the Senate had signed on. Republicans in the Senate had signed on. Democrats in the House had signed on. And the Republicans in the House had signed on… But then, to everyone’s surprise! Paul Ryan, said no, it raised taxes, so he and his Tea Party couldn’t vote on it… The deal was scuttled. And we got sequestration, a new debt ceiling, and the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts all at once… . .

Last Monday, Paul Ryan voted to raise taxes. So what was the Big Deal?

This table shows the relief from last years policy. This year, we will cut the proposed deficit by 4 billion. That is in jeopardy, because the Hurricane Sandy relief which has been promised to be passed by the new House of Representatives sworn in yesterday, is already 60 billion over what was previously budgeted…. Next year we may get some of that back; this bill drops our deficit $42 billion.

The point I’m making is that this bill although a victory, actually saves very little…. Obama originally said we’d go with $1.6 Trillion in new revenue. $2.4 Trillion of cuts would be on top of that. Now, including both revenue and cuts, we have not even half of that. Over 12 years, we save $737 billion with $329 billion coming from the last three years of the second term of whomever gets elected after President Obama!

What we got …. was a deal. That says something. America should be grateful for small wonders. America also got time to debate the cuts. They would have happened immediately without debate had we done nothing. SURPRISE!!! 500,000 ARE UNEMPLOYED AS OF TODAY!! America got unemployment insurance extended. America got the wind credit tax extended, very necessary right now. America got higher taxes on the top half of the 1%.… As they scramble to bury their money into our economy, we could see job growth come out of it… And that is really what was important. That the 2$ Trillion sitting outside the economy, get taxed so it becomes now cheaper to invest in our nation’s infrastructure and not in the stock market…. That was the whole idea for high taxes. Force investment into the economy…. Those 400 people who own the top 1/10th of the top one percent of the wealth, now… have to do something with it.. or lose it…

But as for affecting the deficit, it could actually help if the economy takes off and 12 million new jobs open up as anticipated. Those new jobs will pay tax money too, more than making up what the incomes between $250,000 and $400,000 got to keep.

But Delaware’s Senator Tom Carper is correct here. This bill he voted no for, simply kicks the can down the road, where had it not been passed at all, the laws on the books would have begun to eat up the deficit like bacteria in a sewage tank… Like taking an antibiotic, which makes you initially get sick the first day, then you begin getting better almost immediately, this deal against which Carper voted “no” would have caused a recessionary blip, then pulled us into prosperity.

This flashing, daring, last minute grand compromise, as Carper rightfully states, is the equivalent to opting NOT TO TAKE THE ANTIBIOTIC BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU A LITTLE SICK THE FIRST DAY…..