Wonkblog summarizes the offers and counteroffers in a single graphic:
Paul Krugman has gone from marginally positive to marginally negative on whether it’s a deal worth taking (emphasis added):
The question about this looming deal is whether the end justifies the means. Unfortunately, it’s not nearly as clear a case as the health care deal, and I’m agonizing, big time; as of last night I was marginally positive, right now marginally negative…
First of all, the comparison has to be with what we think Obama can get if he goes over the cliff; if that happens, all the Bush tax cuts expire, and he can propose and probably get accepted a new round of middle-class cuts — but nothing else: no extension of unemployment benefits (another cruel, stupid action), no infrastructure spending to boost the economy…As I understand it … taxes on unearned income are going back to pre-Bush levels: capital gains at 20 instead of 15 percent, dividends taxed as ordinary income. If I’m wrong about that, this is easy: no deal.
And there’s extra revenue too, notably from changing the treatment of itemized deductions… Overall, there’s more revenue in this deal than you get from letting the high-end tax cuts expire after the cliff.
So the revenue side isn’t that bad…
Also on the plus side, extended unemployment benefits and more infrastructure spending. But no payroll tax cut extension, which means a fairly big dose of austerity despite the deal.
But then there’s the Social Security cut.
Switching from the regular CPI to the chained CPI doesn’t affect benefits immediately after retirement, which are based on your past earnings. What it does mean is that after retirement your payments grow more slowly, about 0.3 percent each year. So if you retire at 65, your income at 75 would be 3 percent less under this proposal than under current law; at 85 it would be 6 percent less; there’s supposedly a bump-up in benefits for people who make it that far.
This is not good; there’s no good policy reason to be doing this, because the savings won’t have any significant impact on the underlying budget issues. And for many older people it would hurt…
I look at the chart and read PK’s assessment and I conclude “No deal.” Take our chances and go over the cliff.