The numbers prove it ... the GOPer stimulus package was successful! Remember, GOPer's have their wired crossed so what they think is good for America is in reality wrong.

What I think you fail to grasp of this debt ceiling debacle is the GOPer's intent all along was to create such a hostile environment. The best way to securing both Houses of Congress and the White House is the run the economy and country hard into the ground while the Democrats just stand there with a stupid expression on their faces not wanting to believe what they are seeing and afraid to do or say anything lest they be targeted in the next election. They're depending on the public to get so PO'd at Democrats, they'll vote for anyone. That way GOPer candidates won't have to campaign on any platform other than promising to fix the mess the Democrats created.

And since their base is dead set against raising taxes on business or the public, then all those social programs since FDR will have a date at the guillotine on the Washington Mall so as to payoff the debt run up by those spend-thrift Democrats.

So the GOPer's solution to divided government is to do away completely with the Democrat Party leaving the GOPer's the only party running all functions of the government permanently.

We have Obama and his insistence on bipartisanship to thank.

Hopefully whatever it is the conservatives are going to do this go 'round will show people what they have to look forward to with a tea-party controlled government, and a divided government.

In 2012 we will find out if Americans want to fend for themselves. Do they want to let the corporations defile what's left of our pristine land, dismantle the country's safety net for the poor, the elderly, the unemployed and the disabled, let schools quit teaching evolution and just teach creationism, bust what few unions remain and get rid of the middle class once and for all,  stop any attempt to protect our food and water supply, take away a woman's right to decide her own reproductive future, and make sure those damn queers stay in the closet where they begin, or worse yet, try to pray them straight...the list goes on.

The dems are not perfect. Not by a long shot. I have been more disappointed by the leaders of  my new party than words can express. But they beat the living crap out of the repubs. At least they make an effort to show the good things that government CAN do. But in their (our) dysfunction, we don't do a very good job sometimes, and this is one of them.

For those of you who think the default is the only thing the rating agencies are looking at when making the decision to downgrade our treasury bonds, it isn't. They are also looking at our debt-GDP ratio, which is nearing 100% and is making a lot of investors nervous. Don't forget also that Moody's et al are the same agencies that said the trash the banks were selling was good stuff. THEY are being watched as well. Some of the lesser rating groups have already lowered our bonds to AA because of our debt and our dysfunctional government. The debt, although not as pressing as the debt ceiling IS a problem, like it or not, or at least says the world investment community.

I still trust the dems to make better decisions than the repubs. Not a lot better, but better.

Remember the words of Grover Norquist, the repubs lord and master..."I want to shrink government until it is small enough to drag into the bathroom and drown it." Real patriots we have here.

The potential outcomes to the debt ceiling mess now are, broadly speaking, three:

*demand-depressing, unemployment-increasing deficit reduction deal

*default on the US debt

*unilateral invocation of the 14th amendment or some other constitutional provision to avert a default.  Beyond the highly problematic precedent this one would set, it likely will lead to serious consideration of impeachment of Obama and will lead to Obama being sued and SCOTUS hearing that case on an expedited basis to obtain resolution.

All 3 of these options, to use a formal phrase, suck out loud.

So I like your "none of the above".  You're right--it won't happen. It could happen only if the GOP would agree to it.  But they won't. 

"I have not the slightest idea why Barack Obama is so determined to guarantee he becomes a one-term President."

Well, one real possibility is that he has sold out those who elected him in exchange for an easy life and wealth after leaving office.  I think it's pretty much that simple.  This is a man with absolutely no principles at all, a classic climber/sociopath/CEO type who will do anything to get ahead and nothing to help anyone else that isn't primarily intended to help him.

It is becoming glaringly clear that our political, economic, and opinion leaders are so corrupt as to be iredeemable.  While the Republicans are pure filth and a threat to the survival of the Republic, our Democratic leaders are the equivalent of the Scottish lords in Braveheart who sell out their own people for additional titles and lands without the slightest twinge of conscience.  There will be no deliverance for our country from within this cesspool of corruption we call our political system.  It is owned by the very people who destroyed the economy, who choose to make war on the entire Islamic world (and are so stupid they think that's a good idea) and who plan on dismantling every bit of social and political progress there has been in this country since 1932.  Barack Obama is one of those Scottish lords who led their people to slaughter and without any hesitation deserted them in their hour of greatest peril and need.

So if and when Dan at gunpoint surrenders his daughter's college tuition money for the terrorist not killing her the turkey of a "compromise" passes...

The White House and those on both sides of the partisan divide who voted for it will talk about how both sides were very unhappy with parts of it, including themselves.  But that what was done was for the good of the country and will go a long way to help us get our financial house in order.  It was a tough process, tough to watch, but we showed the American people that both parties can work together and compromise to cut spending and get things done in this town.  And, for those who didn't hear it the first time, we showed ourselves able to compromise to cut spending and get things done.  

That being the operative word or phrase that David Plouffe has apparently succeeded in getting the President, and perhaps other Democratic elected officials, to believe the slice of independent voters who will decide Obama's re-election fate want to hear above all others.  Never mind that it will be a compromise on terms a bit to the right of where the average Republican citizen stands on these matters.  It's a compromise!  Hooray!  

And the public reaction, in the immediate aftermath, will be?  Any predictions?

I wouldn't be surprised if in the immediate aftermath the public essentially says this was the least bad option, maybe not a good one, but necessary.  There will be some vague sense of an earth-shattering catastrophe having been avoided.  And when compared to an earth-shattering catastrophe being averted, a job-killing, economy-wrecking exercise in governmental and societal idiocy whose consequences will not be felt today or tomorrow could look relatively tolerable, I suppose.

I wonder how long, if it ever happens, for public sentiment to change as the job-killing and economy-wrecking damage starts to kick in?  Perhaps the dealmakers think if they can stretch out the process of job-killing and economy-wrecking cuts in several stages, as seems to be the scuttle now, it'll be so difficult for 98% of the public to follow that no one will much understand what is going on.  Enabling incumbents who voted yes to defend their positions before the voters next year with a passable narrative whose omissions or deceits 98% of their listeners will find themselves unable to detect.  

If my investment advisor friend is right we'll see a strong 2-week rally on Wall Street, after which things will return to where they were a week ago.