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Learning to love the fiscal cliff after the Santa Claus election

Learning to love the fiscal cliff after the Santa Claus election

Here’s a description of the “fiscal cliff“:

So just what is this “fiscal cliff” that has the financial markets rattled and economists and policymakers alike in a tizzy over the potential for sending the economy into another tailspin?

It’s a one-two punch of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and major across-the-board spending cuts to the Pentagon and domestic programs that could total $800 billion next year, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates.

The cliff is the punishment for previous failures of a bitterly-divided Congress and White House to deal with the government’s spiraling debt or overhaul its unwieldy tax code.

The largest component of the cliff comes with the expiration of tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 and extended two years ago in the wake of President Barack Obama’s drubbing in the 2010 midterm elections.

It also includes sharp spending cuts imposed as a consequence of the failure of last year’s deficit-reduction supercommittee” to reach agreement. There are other elements, chiefly a 2 percentage point cut in payroll taxes orchestrated by Obama and unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless that would disappear.

Sure, many elements stand against what we stand for — lower taxes and a strong military.  But after Tuesday’s Santa Claus election, in which a bare majority voted for more Obama phones and free contraception and abortions, maybe it’s time for a complete and dramatic reset of government.

Shrink it, pay for it, stop Santa Claus before he turns us into Greece.

I’m not endorsing going off the fiscal cliff yet, but it’s worth a discussion since we have lost the ability for four years to change the trajectory of economic destruction.  Maybe it’s time for us to take our medicine while we still can.

Update –  It’s bipartisan! Don’t fear fiscal cliff, says Democrat

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Comments

Except for containing Obama’s and the progressives’ favorite item – raising taxes on rich people for punitive reasons (masked as “fair share”) – this was put in place as a deliberate, unpalatable series of actions to force the hand of the elected class. Things are so bad, they are on the eve of the trigger, and can still only flap their lips about it.

Gridlock is often the only good thing about DC. Regardless of how foolish some of us may feel the voting public was recently, the majority still are not in favor of many of these ‘sequestration’ pieces and are especially likely to be livid with its anticipate impact if allowed to proceed. Well see whether partisan forces are stronger than actually listening to and acting on the will of the people.

    Raising taxes on the so called rich is bull crap. If it raises 5 billion dollars a year that is like pissing in the ocean. The deficit and debt will still be there and a threat. Cutting spending AND waste is the only answer.

I’m for going over the cliff now. Let’s take our medicine and its consequences so that we can rebuild. I love my grandkids more than my comfortable life.

I hate what it does to the military but I vote we lose the battle to win the war. Like Rick, I love my kids more than my stuff.

I am with Rick. It has taken 60 years to reach this point. And we think that the entrenched class is going to solve it in less than 60 days? Good luck with that thought.

I am deeply in favor of the `burn it down` strategy. I have been positioning my family for that day for 5 years now. So lets let it come, no coddling, make it fast, make it deep. When half of America is dumpster diving for food like the folks on Staten Island were last week maybe only then will enough people finally realize the socialist fairy tale was a lie.

You may not be calling for going over the cliff, but I absolutely am. Get in your barrel and ride it over the falls. If that’s what they want, that’s what they get.

I’m beginning to like the idea of the Right simply standing down and letting the Left have everything they want in Congress.

The country is going to crash — let the Left own it. Let reality finally trump the Corrupt Media.

Get this over with. The longer we wait, the higher the cliff.

To any Veterans and their families reading this, THANK YOU! You all are in my heart and prayers. Happy Veterans Day

    When that happens, the media will blame the Republicans for letting it happen.
    Thank you, asshat Boehner and McConnell. Until we get rid of these two clowns, nothing will change.

      I can’t really fault McConnell as he had to fight Obama in 2009 with 41 (and sometimes fewer) Senators for 2 years. Boehner, on the other hand, has all the power. He traded a massive debt ceiling increase for $352 million in budget cuts plus a sequestration deal that guts the military. Does he not understand that he could literally starve the beast? The House has the exclusive Constitutional authority to create budgets. I say the Continuing resolutions end now. Obama should be given no choice but to sign a budget that authorizes exactly 18% of GDP and would be a reduction of about 40% from last year’s spending. If he doesn’t like it, the budget effectively becomes $0 and it will be two years until the Republicans can get voted out.

Never let a crisis go to waste. Boehner should do anything he can to ensure that Obama and the democrats own the results.

    jimzinsocal in reply to bawatkins. | November 11, 2012 at 1:08 pm

    To the point of televised hearings on the cliff/tax issues.
    Republicans need to be on record with what we see with the downside risks with tax increases.
    Also it needs to be clear to the public the raft of tax increases hidden uneder the Obamacare umbrella.
    Its untrue for the President to suggest the “rich pay a little more” as if its something new. In 2013 “the rich” will be paying more via Obamacare and in many cases those cost increaes will flow to everyone.

They will raise the debt ceiling and borrow till our currency is rejected. If Republicans don’t give the candy, they will be blamed. America was not ready to take entitlements away, even from very rich Big Bird.

The evidence was clear this election, and we couldn’t win. Any action toward fiscal responsibility (austerity they call it in Europe) will be greeted with the same enthusiasm as in Greece. Bush has been blamed for it all, even though it started falling apart when Democrats took Congress in 2006.

The cliff will come soon anyway … but Reid wants $2.3 trillion more borrowing. They will NEVER restrain anything … spend spend spend, blame blame blame, till currency collapse. They’re on a suicide mission. Perhaps letting prearranged cuts happen is the best alternative.

“The cliff is the punishment for previous failures…to deal with the government’s spiraling debt or overhaul its unwieldy tax code.”

Gosh, I remember a pair of guys who stood for just exactly that. Really decent, fine men, too.

A bare majority of voters (I won’t call them Americans) rejected all that, and chose chaos instead.

And a bunch of people who certainly should have known better stayed at home and let them.

TrooperJohnSmith | November 11, 2012 at 11:03 am

Of course if the place crashes, Axelrod, Plouffe, Wassermann-Schlitz and Prez-O-Bama will say that it was an over-extension of the Bush Tax cuts and the failure of the Republican House to “make the rich pay their fair share” that drove us over the cliff.

And since at least 57-million Americans are stupid enough to buy the Bullshit Campaign the Prez-O-Bama just laid upon ’em, they’ll buy into this. No matter how bad it finally gets, up to and becoming Greece On Steroids, it will be the Republicans’ failure to raise taxes that caused this.

Count on it. The talking points are already written and in the hands of the aforementioned, as well as in the e-mail in-boxes of the apparatchiks at MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, PBS, ABC, Pravda, Isvestia and your local teachers’ union.

The game is fixed, until economics drives the MSM organs out of business, thus allowing an honest, unexpurgated dialogue to occur.

Here’s the problem with intentionally letting the nation go to hell…

1. if our representatives vote FOR it, how are they not tarred with same brush? If they vote AGAINST it, legally it doesn’t happen;

2. at some point in time, we become so weak that we become vulnerable to aggression;

3. given a cataclysm domestically, who says our ideals come out on top? In such times, the most ruthless have historically ascended, not the most enlightened.

Aside from all that, I think we tipped the point anyhow last week. I think we as a movement and as individuals have to defy at every opportunity, and make a record that we stand and stood against chaos.

No Pain, No Gain. Bring It.

We know that the media message is already written. And we can never win the messaging war unless we fundamentally change the macro environment within which our message is shaped and distorted by the media. A couple of days ago, I wrote this:

“The last point I want to make is this. The Republicans will never be in a stronger position than they are in in December 2012. They will keep getting eaten away and eaten away at as the electorate inexorably tilts left. The only weapon we have to break out of this political “kill box” is the budget cliff and the debt ceiling limit. If we cut a deal, we are done for a generation. Congressional Republicans need to hold firm on not raising the debt ceiling and allow sequestration and the expiration of the tax cuts hit. The only way out is to accelerate the system crash and get to the inevitable austerity measures quickly. Even though this is like calling for artillery fire on our own position, we are getting overrun. In that situation, we’ve got to take some chances to try to beat the attack back and get the situation more to our advantage.”

The only way we can break through the messaging blanket of the media is to use the tools we have at our disposal to force the crisis. Besides – in the spirit of “punishing our enemies” we should exact the biggest price we can from the people who subordinated their economic and physical well being to their cultural solidarity with the left. Right now, Obama voters just expect things to go on as they always have. It’s time to cause that basic assumption of theirs to be cast into grave doubt. Let them know the financial fear of the private sector producers upon whom they rely for their livelihood.

I wrote in the same post:

“4) Middle and upper middle class citizens have bought into the Democrat’s cultural message and that cultural message trumps their own economic well being. Frankly, now that Obamacare is not going to be repealed, it trumps their *Physical* well being as well. It doesn’t matter, like in Canada, it will take 15-20 years for the great American medical system to decay to the squalor of Europe and Canada. It’s cold comfort to know that they are just as much of a number to a “death panel” than I am. But the culture matters even more than economics. ”

We are going to get weaker and weaker over time and the system crash will come anyway. I think the choice comes down to how we want to rebuild American society in the twilight of the New Deal and Great Society. Do we want to rebuild society with a citizenry that has been enervated by 20-30 years of socialism, or not? If we postpone the crash, what will emerge from the wreckage will be quite different than the society that would emerge tomorrow. Culture matters. We learned that painfully in this last election.

I believe that for the moment, adversity yields conservatism in America. Five years from now, I’m not going to be so confident. Fifteen years from now, it won’t be possible to reclaim a conservative small-government/individual liberty culture. So get to the crisis sooner rather than later.

Original observations here:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2012/11/get-ready-for-a-stronger-conservatism/comment-page-1/#comment-389732

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to RDA. | November 11, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    The Squalor of Europe And Canada ?

    Their hospitals and clinics are ispic and span.

    The standards of medicine are high. They ate not Neanderthals.

      BannedbytheGuardian in reply to BannedbytheGuardian. | November 11, 2012 at 5:05 pm

      You can argue how they manage their Fiscals but you cannot condem them outright.

      Besides , Americans are going to have to do a lot more with less in hospitals and clinics very soon.

      Of course, they’re clean. They don’t see patients and their janitors make more than their doctors.

        BannedbytheGuardian in reply to 1539days. | November 12, 2012 at 12:04 am

        Actually Europeans generally prefer to be born at home & die at home. Whatever germs there are are part of their normal life anyhow & the janitorial work is free.

        Midwives & nurses do this work .

        Anything else on your list ?

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | November 11, 2012 at 11:31 am

If we go over the cliff the Bush tax cuts for everybody expire. The Democrats will then initiate legislation to give tax cuts to everybody except those earning more than $250,000. Then they’ll restore a chunk of the planned military cuts. Does anybody think Republicans are going to try to stop the tax cuts on those making less than $250K and restore part of the military budget? I don’t see how Republicans can win.

The uncertainty about how the cliff is resolved is likely to cause business to retrench until it is resolved. That plus the fiscal drag from higher taxes on the top 2% and the expiration of the payroll tax cuts will give us a very slow growth economy at best and may put us into another recession. Considering the Federal Reserve is already as loose as a goose, I’m not sure what policy steps can be taken to restore growth. It’s hard to see how the Republicans can be blamed if that happens, but the Democrat Media Complex will surely find a way.

    I disagree. If we go over the cliff, there will be no legislation from the Democrats to reinstate the tax cuts for the lower brackets. It couldn’t be part of a campaign platform, but they know taxes need to go up, significantly, on everyone to pay for even a portion of their spending. If we don’t go over the fiscal cliff, they will soon start calling for a national “VAT” tax or something similar. In the past their have been rumblings within the Obama administration about the need for just that.

    Similarly, the Democrats will make no push to reinstate Defense cuts. Enough, including our president, truly dislike and will never understand our nation’s military and its significance.

Darth Chocolate | November 11, 2012 at 11:34 am

Go over the edge. It is what they want. Let them have it.

Just do not expect me to help pick up the pieces.

Instead of being simple purveyors of simple messages perhaps our side could start playing chess instead of checkers.

Budget negotiations need to be about destroying the Democrats, not forging a real deal.

They want to raise taxes on the rich? Fine. Announce, with appropriate fanfare and ballyhoo, that the GOP will agree to that IF the Democrats will agree to….. whatever we know they would never agree to.

Then when they balk announce that the Democrats aren’t willing to tax the rich after all–because the rich are their friends. Publicize all the money given by Walls Street and Hollywood to Obama. Explicitly charge that they are engaging in payoffs and protecting their friends. Turn everything into a PR moment. Nothing is to be private. All is to be used publicly for effect.

Then when the deal falls apart put on a united front that the Democrats are the cause of the failure and that they are willing to kill grandma to protect their precious cronies who would have been hurt by real reform.

Reform can always be done later, even after January 1. If played right the Democrats may then be willing to give us what we want–just make sure it redounds to the benefit of our side.

Rahm Emanual once purportedly said that no crisis should ever go to waste. Let’s carry that a bit further. Let nothing, crisis of not, go to waste.

    Midwest Rhino in reply to jimposter. | November 11, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    yeah

    Romney wanted to limit total deductions to like $25,000, even for those making a million. Democrats don’t want that, because they want to raise rates, but still protect THEIR rich with all the special deductions the lobbyists have arranged. Dem’s talk about eliminating loopholes and waste, but they won’t do it because that is part of how they fund their rich friends. It is the entitlement for the rich program, that the lobbyists arrange in Gucci Gulch.

    Time for a showdown in Gucci Gulch, though Republicans have their lobbyist friends too … so will probably yield and pretend they had no choice. I predict sell out Republicans yield to lobbyists … they are the real owners of our government.

      Midwest Rhino in reply to Midwest Rhino. | November 11, 2012 at 12:58 pm

      btw, this is why Romney was so wrong on the 47% of filers … the biggest entitlement seekers are the lobbyists’ clients. 30% of Romney’s disdained 47% are working stiffs without a lobbyist. And he forgot 100 million adults don’t even file. What an absurd system.

Some exit polls found voters saying, “Yes, the economy’s bad, so I want to make sure the social programs are in place when I really need them.” And they voted for the incumbent.

Never mind that the incumbent is doing nothing to make sure they’ll have Social Security and Medicare when they need those. (The other team was doing that.) It’s the mindset: In a bad economy, they’ll vote for Santa Claus to keep reaching into his stash and keeping them barely afloat — rather than vote for a chance at a robust economy.

Same thing happened in the 1930s. Most people still see FDR as the one who saved people when the economy was terrible for so long, and they don’t entertain the notion that he had something to do with keeping the economy terrible.

    Radegunda in reply to Radegunda. | November 11, 2012 at 11:49 am

    Sorry, that was supposed to be a reply to Ragspierre’s question 3. Large numbers of people don’t draw the rational lessons from experience, or they don’t like those lessons.

    And yes, the ruthless win. The Dems ran a vicious campaign; Romney ran a nice, positive one (except in the primaries ….) Add to that all the precincts and counties that had more votes than registered voters, the people bused from Chicago to Wisconsin to vote, the late-day swing from big Romney lead to Obama in Florida even though the last counties to close are in the heavily Republican Panhandle, etc. The stats don’t make sense.

    Even if a distressing proportion of voters are ill-informed and unwise, I’m not at all convinced that the majority voted for Obama.

As I wrote recently on my own blog, “We’re About to Get the Government the People of Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio Deserve.” (http://fleeingfromutopia.blogspot.com/2012/11/were-about-to-get-government-people-of.html).

I commented at the end that “Perhaps the pain of the next four years to come will teach you the object lesson that you so richly deserve.”

The Republican caucus needs to stand up and say “NO” and then stick to their position. The only way for people to actually see the destructiveness that has been wrought upon them is to FULLY bring the pain TO them, let them cry out for relief and IGNORE THEM

Yes the Main Stream Morons are going to point to “those evil Republicans and TEA Partiers” as uncompromising, uncaring bastards. The Republicans need to go out there EVERY TIME and say “hey, we’re went to the President, we offered him a different path, one that would have saved you, the people, from this pain but the President and Harry Reid’s Democrat controlled Senate is so set in their Marxist, Redistributionist ways that they wouldn’t even listen to our ideas.

It’s what SHOULD have been done when we were approaching the LAST Debt Ceiling: MAKE THE NARRATIVE ABOUT THEM BEING OBSTRUCTIONIST.

Getting to acceptance!
Tired of working so the bureaucrats can have a better retirement than I! So I will resist my natural inclination to work hard, hoping the cliff will arrive quickly.

When Humpty Dumpty needs to be remade, I will be there.

I wasn’t real clear. … going over the cliff will also be blamed on Republicans. That is a willful decision to NOT raise the debt ceiling $2.3 trillion as Reid wants.

But taking the blame now might be better than a bigger collapse later. Democrats are happy to go parabolic in debt, and wait till currency collapse (or bond market collapse).

The funding crisis, where bonds sell off, and we maybe lose reserve currency status, we move toward what Geithner already mentioned, some sort of global currency. “They” seem to want that, so though Republicans will get blamed again like the last “government shutdown, debt ceiling” war. But it might be better to take that horse pill than waiting till we jeopardize our currency and economic freedom.

We are not just playing for party, but for economic freedom, which may quickly influence all freedoms. Democrats are ready to take advantage of any crisis, as Republicans whine about too much spending, and always yield. Take the heat now, it won’t get any better later.

The sequester contains 2 things the D’s couldn’t have accomplished without the stupidity of Republican leadership.

Its a masssive cut to Medicare and a massive cut to Defense spending. Both are huge priorities for the D’s, so long as they can blame it on the R’s. Which the sequester allows.

Remember, Obamacare is a massive shift in taxpayer subsidies for health care AWAY from Medicare and into the new entitlement, from which retirees benefit not at all.

As for the Bush tax rates, if Boehner had any balls (which he doesn’t) he’d have the House vote to make them permanent and send the bill to the Senate. Key point: make them all or nothing. The House needs to insist on either keeping the tax rates as is, or letting them ALL expire and going back to the Clinton rates. The D’s want just the top tax bracket’s rate to expire, for purely ideological reasons. They need to punish success to satisfy their bloodlust against the ‘rich’.

Obamacare is also a MASSIVE tax hike. There are 22 new or increased taxes under Obamacare. The price tag, per CBO, is something like $800 Billion over the first 10 years. Many of these taxes start on Jan 1, ’13, the rest kick in a year later.

The ‘fiscal cliff’, by the way, has NOTHING to do with the debt ceiling. Raising the debt ceiling makes our situation WORSE, not better. Remember, it was raising the debt ceiling while doing nothing to rectify the spending problem that resulted in the federal debt downgrade.

The defense cuts are a symptom of the all-consuming entitlement state. ALL of our European allies fell into this trap. As entitlements consume more and more of revenue, defense cuts become a recurring feature.

Now, as we saw last summer, all of our NATO allies combined were incapable of taking out Libya without our help. It took less than a week for them to have severe shortages of missiles. Pathetic. There wasn’t even a ground campaign involved.

Today, England and France COMBINED have a single aircraft carrier. Its small and old and spends most of its time in port under repair. When its at sea, they can’t even provide a full complement of escort vessels for it. Both countries recently voted to further reduce their navies. Soon, they won’t have much more at sea than Greece.

We are at the top of that slope now. China and Russia are building up their military, ours is about to go into permanent decline.

Shocker. Bob Woodward suggests we can get revenue growth without raising rates. Who knew? We all did

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/11/11/bob-woodward-shocker-there-way-raise-revenue-and-lower-tax-rates

Subotai Bahadur | November 11, 2012 at 1:19 pm

Let it burn. After accounting for vote fraud, a bit less than half of the voters, and all of the Democrats, voted for this. Let them have it good and hard. Today there are still roughly a half million people in the Northeast who are without food, water, power, and shelter; weeks after the storm. Every one of those states voted for Democrats up and down the ballot for generations. Here is what they got:

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/021909.html

They made their choices. And even if the deaths go to 4 or 5 figures and the power is not restored by Christmas, they will continue to vote the same people in.

In my life I have helped abused women get out of abusive situations. Black eyes, broken bones, etc. I don’t anymore. Because after all that effort, risk, and emotional investment, EVERY FREAKING TIME they went back to their abuser within months. You cannot help people who will actively seek abuse as an alternative to being responsible for themselves. Which kind of defines modern Democrats.

Leftists will get no help from me, and I recommend boycotts of local businesses owned by Democrats to make sure that they get what they voted for.

When it comes to the cliff, Boehner has already agreed to “increased tax revenues”. For that matter, he already agreed to “comprehensive immigration reform” [read that amnesty and open borders] and hinted that the Second Amendment may not be safe. So we will go over the cliff in a bit worse shape than we are in now.

If I had my druthers, and the Institutional Republicans cared for the country, the House Republicans would vote “Present” on all tax bills, and make the Democrats absolutely own them, since we have no possibility of stopping them [remember, the Democrats have ignored the budgetary part of the Constitution for 4 years and gotten away with it] anyway. But that puts responsibility on “their esteemed colleagues across the aisle” [gag]. So it won’t happen.

Subotai Bahadur

Y’know prof, I tend to agree.

It’s time to bring this thing to resolution one way or the other.

By “one way,” I mean for the House to hold steadfast to NO tax increases period. Then it gets kicked back to dingy Harry and the anointed one.

David R. Graham | November 11, 2012 at 2:42 pm

From a retired union man and also a [never retired] Union man: My wife and I are here, same old same old but with sorrow for our country, as you well know. I don’t see anything we can do about that or should do about that. The sorrow has to be borne in silent resignation. The event is so enormous that it has to be the will of God, for what purpose I do not know except to trust it is a redemptive one. I know I’m not being nice to anyone who comes across with collectivist crap and I’m calling them on it immediately and directly – not online, where it’s a waste of time and energy, but in person, face-to-face. Destruction and fire all around.

I don’t see a political course to correct the damage. A military one, of course, but a political one, I see none.

The moral is to the material as three is to one and the moral is collapsed, so the material/political also must be. Rebuild the moral. Only way to rebuild the material and political. Redesign the system of education from the ground up, which I made an effort at in the 80s for our kids’ homeschooling and which is on our website as Quintivium. Stop consuming broadcast and dead-tree “news,” including Fox. We are what we eat. They are liars, including Fox.

My wife and I probably will unregister as Republicans because the leaders are pusillanimous little shits. I don’t know that we will vote again except in local elections as against tax increases. In what years destiny has left for me I expect to vote never again for a politician. Our own unions have betrayed us and our country. More pusillanimous little shits.

These words give me comfort:

Bear all and do nothing;
Hear all and say nothing;
Give all and take nothing;
Serve all and be nothing.

The Tax Foundation has provided this:

“This Fiscal Cliff: A Primer”

http://taxfoundation.org/article/fiscal-cliff-primer

theyjustcantstop | November 11, 2012 at 6:56 pm

i’m of the same mind,lets take our fiscal cliff medicene now,i can’t stand this drip-drip-drip-of socialist creep,with every deal struck in washington.
with 4 more yrs. of o’bama,and in my mind theres more than enough,laws,(obama-care),epa policies,and regulations,and runaway debt,and the non-enforcement of immagration,and entitlement laws,to push us off the cliff anyway.
bring it on,maybe then by 2014,there may not be as many voters,agreeing with democrats,and o’bama’s agenda.

My fundamental problem with the Democrat proposals to raise taxes only on the “rich”, is the precedent it sets … that it is just fine that the state can be used to jam the socio-economic morality of some down the throats of others, in areas that stretch well beyond government’s legitimate mission of securing our unalienable rights.

Maybe it is time to send a message to the GOP House members that we consider this precedent such a threat, that each of us are willing to climb in the Thelma & Louise convertible ourselves and go over the fiscal cliff along with them …

… making it clear that “I’M ALONG FOR THE RIDE, SO NO DETOURS! If the successful are going to pay more, so should I”

For some of us, who work in the defense industries, this presents a secondary threat as well, of course. While I don’t see my own job threatened, each of us need to carefully consider whether or not we are willing to climb in the passenger’s seat and publicly go for the ride.

OK, poke some holes in this … I want to be bold, not stupid.

I personally believe that Obama wants to raise taxes on EVERYBODY, not just the richest Americans. ‘EVERYBODY’ less the wealthiest is where all the money really is anyway. He needs all this to finance his deficit spending.

He is in a no-loose position. He claims he want’s to protect the middle class tax cuts and if the Republican’s don’t agree with him, then he blames them for raising middle class taxes. If the Republicans cave,then he wins by breaking the back of his opposition. However, if Obama caves by signing another extension, everyone kicks the can down the road.

No matter what the Republicans do, they will get blamed some way. As a result, I’ve also been thinking it might be better to just allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. At least that way, it places the burden of government on EVERYONE, not us the wealthy. Also, Republicans ought to go on the offensive with respect to raising taxes by following Glenn Reynolds advice on repealing the Hollywood tax cuts!

I had this discussion with a friend the day after the election day and I told him then that I think I have resigned to the point where I believe we will be better off going over the cliff. If not, the can just gets kicked further and further down the road until eventually people stop buying our debt (at least at an affordable rate) and the whole thing implodes. Even if we do go over the fiscal cliff, that will still happen, without true reform, but at least we will have bought ourselves some time. The thought of gutting our military is disgusting to me, but if Americans are no longer willing to make the sacrifices to pay for it, well, elections have consequences.

It looks like a Doom state of affairs…..It looks like a life as an expatriate will be the only option.

Will it be a Civil War or ethnic cleansing as the states succeed. I think and hope there will be a compromise. My hope is that it doesn’t escalate to an insane level.

Obama has to reach across party lines and discontinue his divisiveness. I hope he can understand Keynesian economies to make smarter decisions. Decisions that are not based on emotion. Decisions based on improving our debt-ridden over indulged population who will soon understand that “austerity” and hard work should be a cornerstone of building wealth, not doling out charity. Education still remain a privilege.

Can we all work together? My hope is yes but fundamentally the parties need to come together. What is at stake is are basic freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If in the pursuit the end justifies the means then seeking a better life for your families in the US will be impossible because government deems it to be secondary.

In an old Star Trek movie, Spot said, “the needs of the many, out way the needs of a few or the one” –we now will have a Volcan Economy -a new coined concept of running our government. Imaginary of course, and one where the character sacrifices himself but somehow escapes his demise. Unfortunately I don’t think US will fair so well.

I’m all for the fiscal cliff. If sanity won’t return any other way, then a hard economic crash just might be the wakeup call people need.

As for Keynesian economics, I think we can file that entire theory to the dustbin of library history next to “Communist successes throughout the ages”