By Kevin G. Hall

McClatchy Newspapers

July 31, 2011

"If all you can say is this, after 12 weeks of intense wrangling, charges and counter-charges, if all they can do is pass the basic debt limit, we're very disappointed," said Steve Bell, a senior director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank comprising former Democratic and Republican power brokers that last year offered an exhaustive plan to tackle the nation's fiscal problems.

What irked Bell and other budget experts was that the plan emerging from congressional and White House officials appeared to take off the table serious attempts to address military spending or changes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

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Economic Policy Project