This gamesmanship at the end of the process blew up what would have been a substantial deal, with well over $3 trillion in spending solutions, more like $4 trillion if you include the foregone debt payments that would result. And yes, the accounting gimmick on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq accounts for a full trillion dollars.

It’s all very precious. An entity funded by the big banks makes a judgment (which shouldn’t be seen apart from their other discredited judgments) about the debt. The party most allied with the big banks uses that judgment to demand that their preferred policy, which doesn’t reduce the national debt for THIRTY YEARS, must be enacted immediately. Incidentally, that preferred policy reduces taxes on the rich, including the rich executives at the big banks.

House Democrats, after taking an internal vote, decided against bringing up the Obama-brokered tax deal in its current form.

Senior Administration officials tried to cast their deal on the Bush tax cuts in a positive light, even as forces on the left and right were mobilizing against it. The deal is so shaky that the White House officials and the President would only call it a “framework.” Several Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate are already either simply opposed, or dedicated to mobilizing for defeat of the package, and the Senate Majority leader delivered a terse one-line statement only agreeing to discuss it with his colleagues. The biggest news here is that this deal isn’t done.