now that the repugs have shown they are at fault provides us with the ability to do the right thing next year.

the repugs are completely useless for the country and need to lose their majority in the house in 2014. this would support that. go to the people with middle class cuts in jan.

if the house opposes, they lose moderate votes in 2014. if they approve, the lose all the wingnut votes in 2014.

Krugman, Reich, the CBO, all say that things might get bad if the cliff scenario lasts longer than 3 months, but all expect that not to happen. Republicans fear the cliff most because their beloved Bush tax cuts get wiped out and replaced with Obama tax cuts. I believe we won't get there, Boehner handed off his duties to the Democratic Senate to rewrite a House bill already there, so before New Year's, we'll have a deal - written by Democrats.

Would you take dangerous medication, with serious side effects, for an illness you didn't have?

It is, however, a consequence of Americans having elected the House that was elected in 2010.

There is no conceivable deal which could be reached with the current Congress that is better than one which can be reached next year, when at least the R margin in the House is a little lower.

It is furthermore nearly assured that in 2014, the GOP House majority will be lost in the event that a better deal is not reached next year.

That is, it was nearly assured until we were suddenly reminded of the cost of having ignored gun control for so long, to avoid having Democrats tarred with the "gun grabber" label.

Throwing that into the mix, it does look like the next two years will consist of the Republicans demanding money from people making less than $250K - at gunpoint.

Ultimately, the Republicans are now pretty much mugging the country.

that is only moderately better than giving the Republicans almost everything they want.

more hostages with each "deal" as we have done already.

The cliff is really stupid and bad, more "deals" are worse. We should have never put ourselves in this box but we did and there will be consequences no matter what. We put ourselves in check.

The wheels came off simply by accepting the frame. Failing to come up with a budget when we had the House cemented crapitude.

You can't fix stupid and we have done incredibly stupid things to put ourselves in this position.

I also wonder what "deal" do you think you can get that isn't actually worse? MAYBE...just maybe the sequester could be called off in exchange for prolonging the tax cuts but you probably can't also get a debt ceiling deal so we are back at it in a few months. To get both you have to do something cruel and stupid, you have to cut Medicare or Social Security and keep starving the treasury.

This is the fruit of the "bipartisan" ideology being ramrodded through conditions it cannot function in without being detrimental to the majority of people. Middle ground with the delusional isn't a good place. Better to call it crazy and operate from that place than play along with silly season insanity and hope for the best.

but it is another of the 'lesser of two evils'.

The thing is, we are going to have to make a deal. Whatever gets done, it WILL be a compromise. The majority in the House will still belong to Republicans and many of the same Republicans we are dealing with right now. So, we aren't getting EVERYTHING we want. What are WE willing to give up? Not Social Security, that's a given. But what?

There are some really bad parts of stepping off the fiscal curb, but there are some pretty good things about it as well. Things that will simply not happen in any package deal. Things like the Paris Hilton tax coming back (55% over $1M), a 33% bump in the capital gains tax, and a 10% across-the-board spending cut.

But the biggest thing it will do, and this is why almost everyone in DC is staining their underwear, is to force Congress to deal with each of the consequences of letting it happen individually. These packages are the state of the art in obfuscation. They pass "a budget deal that cuts the deficit" and people just nod their heads and say "good job", without ever knowing the details.

If we step off the curb, Congress critters have to vote to cut off unemployment payments, to expand the military budget, to further cut taxes on the richest Americans and raise everybody else's, to openly back corporate welfare bills, to be on the record voting to cut the parks budget again, etc. All things nobody in DC wants to be seen doing, especially the third of the Senators and all of the House members that are going into reelection mode for 2014.

It's better than anything that's been put forward by the Republicans and has the added benefit of avoiding Obama's concession on SSI, but it's far from the "best" solution possible.

...the debt ceiling that is. The "pundits" continue to believe that if a deal isn't done by January 1 one will be done once the new House and Senate are seated. Supposedly the old rates including the AMT for those earning under 250k a year (maybe 400k) will be restored and that crisis is to be averted. However, a real wall to watch out for...and one I see the rushpublicans spoiling for is raising the debt ceiling when that comes due sometime in February. The rushpublicans will have to vote on raising the ceiling or else the government won't be able to pay its debts. The government will come to a halt...SS and other benefit checks will stop and the country's credit rating is sure to take a hit dropping the market and possibly sending us back into recession. This is where the real negotiations will have to take place and it may mean concessions on cuts to programs that people on this side of the sandbox will not like.

It just takes the will to do it and being able to live with no more debt celiing hostages from his party as well as the republiKKKans.

Most people won't feel the "cliff" on Jan 1...or at least until they start working on their 2013 taxes. It WILL hurt people whose extended unemployment insurance benefits will run out and a major reason I would like to see a deal reached before these people suffer. That's "livable" as Dr. Dean and Reich have said...however both have said that not raising the debt ceiling can and will hurt millions. If the government can't pay its debts it won't be able to provide services...and those hit worst will be those who are in need the most...and those people won't care which party created their hardships.

The key here is to force a deal on not only the "cliff" but the debt ceiling as well and prevent rushpublicans from being able to use the debt ceiling as a way to blackmail this administration into draconian cuts to social services. As has been said by others, a compromise will have to be reached that can gather enough rushpublican votes to get through the House. The deficit mess is real...it's the bill for dubya's war for profit and tax giveaway...it can't be ignored and the sooner its fixed the healthier the economy will be that will benefit us all...

who is an orphan who depend on my husband and myself. We are stretched so thin that we are close to breaking. We have nothing left to sacrifice. We are one late house payment away from losing our homes and we both work like fucking dogs to keep this family afloat. And honestly, we are just hoping that we get an insurance payment in time to make the house note before January 1st. Otherwise we are out on our asses.

Today I went to Walmart and did the ONLY Christmas shopping we will be doing this year. I bought candy and stocking stuffers. That is all we are going to have. So you can take your pompous, bullshit response and shove it up your ass. And I do not give a goddam if this post gets pulled. Fuck you and all the smug assholes like you who make idiotic comments without knowing who they are talking to. I just hope it doesn't get pulled before you get a chance to read it.

...used to maximize the benefit the people confer to the 1%.

Of course they're going to make a deal and the little people will get screwed as usual. Then they'll tell us that it was for our own good...as usual.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffet-fiscal-cliff-2012-11#ixzz2Fu3HCaxm

http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2012/11/despite_what_youve_heard_the_a.php

"If Congress departs from its annual tradition of steeply reducing the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), 57 percent of the tax will be paid by the richest five percent of Americans and 91 percent of the tax will be paid by the richest fifth of Americans. If Congress does reduce the AMT as usual, almost all of the tax will be paid by the richest five percent of Americans.

The AMT is one of the factors contributing to the hysteria in Washington about the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the point at which several tax cuts expire and several spending cuts go into effect at the end of this year. Lawmakers and observers often mistakenly portray the AMT as a tax that will affect middle-income Americans if it is not controlled."



In other words, most of the people who benefit from the much-ballyhooed AMT patch - they are fairly well off compared to the rest of us.

91% of those paying the AMT, even without the patch, are in the top 20%.

That means they make more money than 80% of the rest of us. They're kinda rich.

The truth is that cliff-diving sucks less than surrendering to the GOP's demands. Too long, they've been practicing governance by hostage-taking and blackmail.

It's time to tell the Republicans "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

My concern is sincere. We are struggling. No, I don't want to take a deal that screws us more down the line, but we have held on by the skin of our teeth and are finally seeing a light at the end of a very long tunnel. If the economy tanks again, we will most likely lose our house. Both my job and my husband's (we are self employed) rely on at least decent economic growth so that people feel like they can remodel or owning horses.

I can't really feed my family with your ideals.

For one thing, the President has the option of making the witholding effective immediately or delaying the onset of any withholding changes. So if Obama thinks a middle class tax deal will be reached (and it's hard to imagine it won't) he could delay the effect of tax withholding which would negate at least the immediate tax implications for most folks. As far as government spending goes, sequestration is different than other budget stalemates because this too doesn't have to take effect immediately since government budgets will be cut rather than stalled.

Obama really holds all the cards on this one. At the first of the year the argument for preserving the Bush tax cuts vanish because they will no longer exist. From there it will just be a matter of negotiating a tax cut and the cons won't easily be able to say no to that. Since Obama has already extended the olive branch only to have the cons throw it on the floor and stomp on it, they won't find much traction with the public on trying to pin any negative consequences on Democrats.