Once Dems bought into the austerity/cuts frame,
the debate was over. Nobody actually cares about the deficit, they never did, so they only question is who takes responsibility for the cuts. Republicans want to be responsible for cutting in the abstract, and the White House has made that easy for them. Specific cuts, on the other hand, actually make for sad voters so it's no surprise that aside from trivial in $ terms funding cuts they've got nothin'.
