The tax deal cut yesterday between the White House and congressional Republican leaders will have a complicated legacy that’s a bit difficult to anticipate at the moment.

That’s assuming it’s approved by Congress.  Bernie Sanders is already promising a Senate filibuster on the deal, whose very existence is offensive to many progressives, and RedState’s Erick Erickson is calling for opposition from conservatives.  But it will probably get through these obstacles, if only because about the only political force that actually supports the alternative—the expiration of all the Bush tax cuts along with a major lapse in unemployment insurance benefits—is the deficit-hawk Democrat contingent, who have limited clout in Congress at the moment.

The revolt against this deal on the left will likely generate more heat and noise than actual votes. Many progressives are already furious at Obama for telegraphing his willingness to cut a deal before it was necessary, and for his generally uncombative pubic stance, which they interpret as evidence the President didn’t learn much from his first two years in office.  Others simply want to register as strongly as is possible their rejection of the ideology supporting the Bush tax cuts, including the estate tax reductions that are incorporated into the compromise.

As scrutiny of the deal sharpens, however, the extension of increases in refundable tax credits aimed at the working poor in last year’s stimulus package may get some attention as well.  These are benefits that Republicans have been increasingly denouncing as “welfare,” so this is perhaps a victory-in-principle for progressives.

Ultimately, the political impact of the deal will probably be measured by its impact, if any, on the economy.  Will the payroll tax holiday provide some critically timed stimulus?  Will investors be impressed by the bipartisanship of it all?  And would the alternative of letting the tax cuts expire and work in Washington grind to a halt have guaranteed the much-feared “double-dip recession”?

Matt Yglesias stresses these short-term economic consequences in his own reaction to the deal:

[T]his has partially set my mind at ease about the prospects of a GOP strategy of economic sabotage. The tax policy the right wants, though in general bad for the country, is not bad for short-term economic performance. And the concessions they were willing to give Obama in exchange for boosting the incomes of rich people are expansionary in the short-term. So the terrain here exists well within the range of “normal” politics where conservatives want lower taxes on rich people. This is kind of nutty in my view, but it’s a deeply held article of faith on the right and not some ad hoc effort to sink the economy or anything.

Ezra Klein,  however, notes the limited stimulative effect the deal is likely to have:

Most of the money just keeps programs that are currently in effect from expiring, so in some ways, it would be more accurate to say that this money is anti-contractionary rather than stimulative. It’s important that the White House doesn’t repeat the mistake it made in the original stimulus and overpromise how much this will do for the economy. What you can say about this policy is that, for the moment, it doesn’t make things much worse, and it probably makes them a bit better. This is not the government making a major new commitment to the recovery. It’s the government not getting in the way, and maybe doing a bit to help, the horribly slow recovery that’s happening anyway.

A collateral benefit, of course, would be the enactment during the lame-duck session of the Defense Authorization bill, which includes an end to DADT, and Senate ratification of the START treaty.  The deal seems to have eliminated the most immediate obstacle to action on these measures; we’ll soon know if progress is now possible.

More generally, the deal guarantees another and perhaps truly definitive battle over tax principles in 2012, adding to the high-stakes nature of that year’s presidential election.

The simplest way to summarize the current moment in U.S. politics is to note that both Congress and the presidentially-appointed deficit commission are engaged in highly symbolic posturing in which some observers see an eventual bipartisan convergence and others see the ultimate triumph of partisanship.

The maneuvering over the fate of the Bush tax cuts is a prime example.  After a procedural wrinkle gave House Democrats the sequence of votes they wanted, they succeeded in passing the long-promised extension of tax cuts targeted to the middle class (though those at the top end, of course, will benefit as well).  But prospects for passage of such a bill in the Senate have, of course, fallen prey to that chamber’s 60-vote requirement, and to the Republican conviction that the White House will ultimately agree to an across-the-board extension of tax cuts, either as a temporary measure, or as part of a deal that would extend unemployment benefits and pursue other worthy priorities.  The single-minded GOP focus on the best possible deal for upper-income Americans (or as Republicans like to call them, “job creators”) arguably gives them greater leverage.

Meanwhile, 11 of the 18 members of the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission voted for a package of recommendations, three short of the supermajority required to trigger congressional action.  Given the “third rails” in the report, such as major structural changes in Social Security and the closing of very popular tax exclusions, you could say it’s amazing a majority (including significant congressional players like Dick Durbin and Tom Coburn) voted for it, however reluctantly and conditionally.  On the other hand, none of the House Republicans would support it, and rank-and-file Democratic opposition would be fierce given the totemic nature of Social Security.  And if Republicans and Democrats can’t cobble together something they can support with the cover of a blue-ribbon commission and a presidential mandate, what makes anyone think they can get anything done in Congress starting all over again?

The spin wars over the Bowles-Simpson report between now and the end of the lame-duck session may well determine whether the commission will later be perceived as a breakthrough, or just another confirmation that the two parties disagree too much on basics to get anything fundamental done.  It is, after all, a bit difficult to compromise between the points of view that the preeminent economic problem facing the country is (a) insufficient consumer demand, and (b) too heavy a burden on investors, since these perspectives guide public policy in diametrically opposed directions.  But if continued partisan gridlock is inevitable, it is true that both parties would like to avoid blame for it, particularly among the segment of voters who either believe strongly in bipartisan compromise or support incompatible policies.

It is worth remembering that the faction of the Republican Party usually credited with making deficit reduction a priority after years of happy indifference to the subject, the Tea Party movement, is also the faction most resistant to any cooperation whatsoever with the Obama administration and with congressional Democrats.   And the faction of the Democratic Party traditionally most interested in deficit reduction and most open to bipartisanship just got disproportionately damaged in the midterm elections.  So don’t hold your breath waiting for big compromises.