The Fiscal Cliff looks to me like one 3-D Chess game that Obama is winnning!

[hedgehog]

[customerserviceguy]

1. It's not over yet.

Yes, the President is making the most pronouncements on the subject, but he's never going to be on a ballot again. Yes, the Rethugs are going to be on one (most of them, anyway) but they don't think like normal people.

What's going to happen if they take a "Shut Down Everything" approach, by letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire in their entirety, the sequester go through, refuse to pass either an unemployment compensation or doc fix extension, then refuse to spare enough votes for a debt ceiling raise?

What will we do if that happens? Watch the economy flush down the toilet while waiting for November, 2014?

[high density]

2. If that happens? We survived these pre-Bush tax rates and higher for many decades in this country

The idea that raising taxes is going to kill the economy is just as ridiculous as the notion that cutting taxes further will lead to amazing growth.

Polls say people are worried about the deficit and debt. I think these are both bullshit issues since we can borrow money at about 0%. But ignoring that, if we do want to help fix the debt and deficit then it is clear that the government needs more revenue.

[customerserviceguy]

3. I'm with you on the taxes

And I think we can survive the sequester, some domestic budget cuts will be worth the first really meaningful cuts in military spending since the end of the Vietnam War.

What do we do about the long term unemployed, and the doc fix, though? Also, we're coming up to the debt ceiling, that is the ultimate threat to our economy that the knuckle-draggers can carry out.

[democrattotheend]

6. That would suck. But it's not in their interest to do that

Because as you pointed out, the president has just been re-elected and doesn't have to run again. But House Republicans do. If they shut down the govt. they will pay for it at the ballot box.

If they were going to deliberately tank the economy to this extent, they would have done it in 2011.

[customerserviceguy]

8. Repukes do OK when Obama is on the ballot

They do even better when he's not.

As for what they did in 2011, they created the conditions that led us to the fiscal cliff by giving us the sequester, and making sure the bipartisan commission was dysfunctional in dealing with the budget. I didn't really see them pay for that.

[Filibuster Harry]

4. To me this is very interesting. And how many days will congress stay in

session to "supposedly" fix this. It's funny how congress still can't decide how to solve it since congress put us in this situation in the first place.

You would think, since this was coming up, that all 5 (Boehner, Pelosi, Obama, Reid, and
McConnell) would have had some sort of plan to begin negotiations. I know why the Rs didn't; they didn't expect the president to get re-elected and so they were just going to list cuts and wait until Mitt came in.

But thank God that didn't happen.

Interesting, very interesting.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Let's not forget why this traditional budget battle has been so dramatically labeled

in the first place. If nothing is done before New Year's day, the capital gains tax goes up 5%.

All the other stuff is comparatively small and can be dealt with in the next Congress, but everybody in DC knows there is no way in hell they're going to pass another tax cut for millionaires and billionaires in the current political climate.

[backscatter712]

7. Finally, Obama's using some proper hardball negotiating strategy.

And the Republicans are going apeshit because they're not simply being coddled, and Obama's demanding they make some concessions.

About time!