Fiscal Cliff

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Tuesday, Congress returns to Washington for its lame duck session. These are generally boring affairs, stuffed with symbolic legislation and resolutions because Congress can't do real work until the next session in January. This session, they have real work to do.

On January 1, a combination of spending cuts and tax increases will kick in, shrinking federal outlays by $630 bn. This will cut every program except Medicare, veteran's benefits, and federal pensions. With such a dramatic contraction in government spending, what little economic progress we have made will be erased, and the country will surely go back into recession.

So what do you think will happen?

unless john boehner stops being a horrible partisan hack, we will go over the fiscal cliff.

Stupid Boehner basically trying to put the country in bad spot for his ideology.

Government by, for and of, Lemmings!

a few generations back, william buckley gave the cold shoulder to the tea partiers of his day [the birchers]. somebody like him needs to rescue the republican party from itself in a similar manner.

More needs to be cut. the government is notorious for pork and waste and that would be a good place to look, as well as combining agencies that have redundant tasks, and then laying government workers off or finding new jobs for them in other agencies. The military and other procurement processes need to be overhauled and hold major contractors accountable for overruns. Last of all, 2 words: illegal aliens.

If we can get about $2 trillion in net budget cuts, we might be able to balance the budget. Personally, I would be in favor of cutting no less than $1 in overall spending for every $1 in new taxes.

Unfortunately in the modern day Republican party, intellectual elites like Buckley have been left out in the cold for dolts like Sarah Palin and Sharon Angle, who know how to talk a good populist game, all the while selling out the common Joe to the economic elite.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

the repubs are run by dirty tricksters like rove, and joe the plumber is emblematic of the party's vox populi.

The issues of the John Birch Society and the issues of the Tea Party are entirely separate issues with very little, if anything, in common.

You are pretty much exactly right. The most serious issue of the day is government borrowing. If left unchecked, that borrowing could bring us down or leave us in a condition that would make us vulnerable to malicious foreign powers. Cutting spending is one of the two major approaches to reduce or eliminate that borrowing.

I'm of the opinion that we should raise taxes to cover any discrepancies. Borrowing the money really hides the damage being done to the country. If we had to pay as we go, that would take major tax raises at every level of income and would give everyone a much greater insight into just how much all this consumption is costing us.

Borrowing money to pay for consumption is nothing but idiotic.

The bad thing is that in spite of their words, both the Democrats and the Republicans love big spending. You can tell whenever the leaders of either major party are lying -- their lips are moving.

I'm actually quite confident Boehner and party leadership will be concillatory. They realize Obama and the Democrats have greater leverage, and Congressional Republicans need to bend a little to get reelected. If we go over the fiscal cliff, many will hold Republicans accountable. This is a battle they cannot win -- it's best they withdraw to fight another day.

My concern is that the House rank-and-file won't go along. The adults seem ready to make some hard bargains. Let's see if the children are.

Compromise seems the only way for the Republicans to survive to fight another day. They failed in Plan A, i.e. make Obama a one term President. Now they will have to try another tack.

ruveyn

Shouldn't this be in PPR?

It will be interesting to see if the Tea Party folks can do that.

I'm betting on a Tea Party/GOP split.

If the GOP is smart, they'll drop the tea party like a bad habit.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

The thing is republican primary voters are far right wing.