Moments ago, President Obama addressed the nation to announce that he had reached an agreement with Republicans to raise the debt ceiling, just two days from potential default. Obama did not discuss details of the deal, but it is likely very similar to the one unveiled by Congressional leaders this morning. He did say the deal was not “what I would have preferred,” but said it will “allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that Washington imposed on the rest America.” Most importantly, it will ensure we don’t have to repeat the crisis in coming months, Congressional leaders from both parties will present the plans tomorrow, urging lawmakers to support it. Watch it:

House Republicans signed on earlier in the night, after Senate Democrats did this afternoon. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said in a conference call with reporters, “My hope would be to file it and have it on the floor as soon as possible.”

Even so, it appears Boehner is already pushing the goal posts. A bipartisan debt reduction committee established by the proposal is charged with looking for ways to reduce the deficit by either cutting spending or increasing revenue. But Boehner put out statement tonight titled, “Two Step Approach To Hold President Obama Accountable,” saying Republicans intend to bind the commitee with accounting rules to “effectively mak[e] it impossible for Joint Committee to increase taxes.” Obama said in his address that he would push for a “balanced approach” on the committee. Obama has suggested previously that if tax reform doesn’t happen through the committee, he will veto an extension of Bush tax cuts when they come up at the end of 2012.

While a tentative deal has been reached to raise the debt ceiling, a number of Republican lawmakers are threatening to blow up the compromise over a provision that would trigger modest cuts to the military if the bipartisan deficit reduction committee the bill creates cannot reach an agreement. Republicans are threatening a “sizable GOP defection in the House” while hawkish Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have expressed concern about the potential defense cuts.

The trigger is intended as a threat to encourage Congress to enact the commission’s requests, and thus contains elements that are distasteful to both parties. But the military cuts should be far more palatable to conservatives than the provision meant to cajole Democrats — Medicare cuts — are to progressives. While cutting social safety net programs like Medicare is anathema to fundamental progressive principles, reining in defense spending is appealing to many fiscal conservatives. In fact, dozens of leading Republican lawmakers, conservative leaders, and Tea Party activists have publicly called for defense cuts in recent months:

– Sen. Johnny Isakson (GA) told a local news station that reducing the deficit “begins with the Department of Defense.”

– Sen. Pat Toomey (PA) criticized Congress for voting for “programs the Pentagon doesn’t even want.” “We want to make sure men and women put in harm’s way have the resources they need. That doesn’t mean the entire defense budget has to be taken off the table.”

– Sen. Rand Paul (KY) told PBS that cutting defense spending “has to be on the table.” He also tweaked Republicans for “never” saying “they’ll cut anything out of military. … There’s still waste in the military budget. You have to make it smaller.”

– Sen. Tom Coburn (OK) wrote in the Washington Times: “Republicans should resist pressure to take all defense spending off the table. … Taking defense spending off the table is indefensible. We need to protect our nation, not the Pentagon’s sacred cows.”

– Sen. Mark Kirk (IL) said that we need “across-the-board” spending cuts, including defense.

– Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) said on Fox News Sunday that he didn’t think “anything ought to be off-limits for the effort to reduce spending.” “I don’t think we ought to start out with the notion that a whole lot of areas in the budget are exempt from reducing spending, which is what we really need to do and do it quickly.”

– Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) said everything, including defense cuts, “should be on the table.”

– Sen. Bob Corker (TN) said on CNBC that defense cuts have to be “on the table” because there’s “a lot of waste there.”

– Rep. John Campbell (CA) said the “military [must] keep ourselves safe, but know we don’t have unlimited resources. … The Defense Department should not be a jobs program.”

– Tea Party Rep. Chris Gibson (NY), a former Army Colonol: “This deficit that we have threatens our very way of life, and everything needs to be on the table.”

– 23 Conservative Leaders, including Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips, and FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe, wrote in a letter to Congress that “Department of Defense spending, in particular, has been provided protected status that has isolated it from serious scrutiny and allowed the Pentagon to waste billions in taxpayer money.”

– Former GOP House Leader Dick Armey: “A lot of people say if you cut defense, you’re demonstrating less than a full commitment to our nation’s security, and that’s baloney.”

– Tea Party Patriots’ Mark Meckler: “I have yet to hear anyone say, ‘We can’t touch defense spending, or any other issue.’ … Any tea partier who says something else lacks integrity.”

Any cuts to the military would likely have almost zero impact on national security, as they would target the many wasteful, costly weapons programs, many of which are barely even used, like the F-22 fighter.

The military cuts in the trigger are one of the few concessions to Democrats in this deal, and small one at that, but some Republicans seem unwilling to give even that up.

Less than three days from potential default, the White House and Congressional Republicans reached a potential deal to raise the debt ceiling and lower the deficit late last night. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on CNN’s State of the Union today that both sides were “very close” to a deal that will cut $3 trillion over 10 years, saying negotiators have made “dramatic progress” over the weekend. Democrats appear less confident that the deal will hold, but still expressed optimism.

The deal is based on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) proposal, but includes a “trigger” mechanism which would make deep across-the-board cuts if the bipartisan committee created by the bill to look for ways to reduce the deficit fails to produce a proposal that can pass Congress. The deal includes other provisions aimed at gaining GOP votes, the Washington Post’s Felicia Sonmez reports:

The process would involve a “resolution of disapproval” by Congress that would allow the debt ceiling to be further raised next year if one-third of either chamber agrees – an idea first proposed by McConnell in a “Plan B” he unveiled several weeks ago. The move would shift the political burden of raising the debt ceiling to the White House from congressional Republicans.

Also included in the nascent proposal would be a provision calling for a vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution – an element that has become a rallying point for House conservatives. But one potential sticking point in any House vote is that the plan calls only for a vote on such an amendment, not the passage of one…

The proposal starts with a bill — Reid’s plan — that was itself an enormous concession to the GOP, intended to call their bluff on raising the debt ceiling, but goes several steps farther. It would force a second vote on the debt ceiling, though with a much easier threshold for passage, even though President Obama has insisted on raising the debt limit through the next election all at once. The supposed concession to Democrats in the trigger mechanism is that it would include defense cuts, which some Republicans oppose, but would also include Medicare cuts, which all Democrats strongly oppose. The deal is lopsided, as many Republicans, especially of the Tea Party wing, have agreed that Pentagon spending should be on the table for cuts all along. The details of the trigger are still in flux, however, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said today that he’ll push for something that will be “equally tough on Democrats and Republicans.”

Moreover, the deal includes zero revenue increases and no call for comprehensive tax reform, and achieving these things through the new bipartisan deficit commission will be almost impossible as Republicans are sure to reject it. Still, White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said today on State of the Union that the White House “fine” with the idea that the bill will be “only spending cuts.” He added that Obama won’t seek new revenues before the 2012 election anyway, and will in fact be pushing for a payroll tax cut.

As ThinkProgress’ Matt Yglesias notes, the fallout from this deal may extend far beyond the plan itself:

[A]t this point the biggest damage is to the overall system of government. Obama has successfully transformed massive debt ceiling hostage taking from an act of breathtakingly irresponsible brinksmanship into a proven effective negotiating tactic. Suppose he gets re-elected in 2012. What’s he going to do when this issue recurs in 2013? Every time the president’s party has fewer than 60 votes in the Senate, we may face a recurrence of this crisis.

The emergence of a deal may, however, prevent a downgrade from the credit rating agencies.