Fiscal Cliff Notes
Now that the election is over, the "Fiscal Cliff" has made it back into the public awareness. This is a packaged, premeditated crisis -- it's been inevitable since the August 2nd, 2011 passage of the "Budget Control Act of 2011." Even the name of that law was a lie; the whole purpose was to delay things so Congress and the President could focus on the crucial business of getting reelected.
What is the "fiscal cliff?" At the end of 2012, several "temporary" tax breaks are set to expire. A couple of fairly major tax hikes and less major new taxes kick in, thanks to the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare). At the same time, emergency unemployment benefit extensions expire. "Sequestration" kicks in; these are automatic budget reductions for both defense (10%) and non-defense discretionary (7.8%) spending. The law also cuts Medicare spending by 2%. The U.S. is approaching the debt ceiling again as well, but not quite fast enough to force this Congress to act. Needless to say, everyone is predicting dire consequences from "falling off" this metaphorical cliff.
Now that Mr. Romney has lost, it's okay for everyone to acknowledge that among the lies, obfuscations, and flip-flops he did have some valid points. For example, I agree that "it is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off." Yes, that's a direct quote, and no, I don't have kids, so it's even more immoral for me to do so.
So I propose we view the metaphor from a different perspective. As a country, we face a mountain of debt. It doesn't matter how it came to be; I feel we have an obligation to try to conquer it "because it is there." That puts us not at the edge of a metaphorical cliff, but at the bottom of it.
Climbing cliff faces is the most difficult and dangerous way to conquer a physical mountain, and that's probably true of this fiscal cliff as well. There are easier ways to conquer a mountain and it certainly is worth looking for those ways, but every day we search makes the job even harder.
My fear and expectation is that Republican and Democratic leaders will argue so long about what path to follow that they end up not starting the climb at all. Call it "a lack of teamwork", "paralysis by analysis", or simple laziness as you will; I expect some sort of extension to kick the problem to the next Congress. I'd far rather see a safer plan, but I'd prefer tackling the cliff head-on rather than another nebulous delay.
Just to keep things "fair and balanced," I'll close with a couple of quotes from very different people to give people on either side of the aisle something to think about.
"Even if you’re on the right track-you’ll get run over if you just sit there." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "
"The really happy people are those who have broken the chains of procrastination, those who find satisfaction in doing the job at hand. They're full of eagerness, zest, productivity. You can be, too." -- Norman Vincent Peal.