Alas, the usual nincompoops in Congress and on Wall Street who are doing their damnedest to make falling off this cliff a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Never mind that the automatic increases in taxes and cuts in spending that lie at the bottom of that cliff (if Congress fails to enact a credible plan by January 1, 2013 to reduce the budget deficit and national debt) will probably do more to stimulate the economy than Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus bill did. That is, once the economy gets over the initial hysteria.
But if you think I’m just too cynical or stupid to appreciate what this fiscal cliff portends, I urge you to simply reflect on the dire predictions professional Chicken Littles were making about the Y2K cliff.
In any case, after a few more weeks of Democrats and Republicans playing their fiscal game of chicken, it would not surprise me if they come up with a plan at the eleventh hour to avoid falling over this cliff. Not least because they themselves created this so-called doomsday scenario — in the spirit of mutually assured (political) destruction — precisely to force them to strike a deal. Except that, given the way Republicans have been deliberating lurching the government from one eleventh-hour cliff to the next (in a brazen attempt to undermine Obama’s presidency), it’s only a matter of time before they push it over … no?
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Sunday, at 7:32 am