This is all utterly wrong. Bipartisan agreement is not necessary to fix the debt. Nothing is necessary to fix the debt. It is as if the network of activists, wonks, business leaders, and Beltway elder statesmen who have devoted themselves to building cross-party support for a deficit deal have grown more attached to the means of bipartisanship than to the ends for which it was intended. The budget deficit is a legislatively solved problem. It is, indeed, an oversolved problem. In the absence of any agreement between the president and Congress, the deficit will shrink to less than one percent of the economy by 2018, and remain below that level through 2022. The budget deficit declines so sharply and so drastically, and in ways that neither party is entirely comfortable with, that the task for Washington is to pull back on deficit reduction.

It’s true that should all this come to pass and Congress does nothing at all, allowing all automatic deficit reductions to stay permanently, then our economy would be hit by a powerful shock—a massive anti-stimulus. This is the outcome that terrifies moderate liberals like Howard Fineman, who warns that the nation is about to “go over the fiscal cliff with no hang glider.”

But here is a case where a bad metaphor has caused everybody to think about the matter in exactly the wrong way. When you walk off a cliff, the first step is your last. There is no such thing as falling halfway down a cliff. But the “fiscal cliff” is not a cliff at all. The economic damage is cumulative. It is the opposite of the debt ceiling, when the doomsday clock ticked down to a moment of sudden calamity. A full year of inaction would do a lot of damage, but a week, a month, or even a couple of months would not. The president would have enough control over the mechanics of the budget to delay the effects of higher taxes and spending cuts in order to cushion the blow to the economy. Even if the tax hikes and spending cuts go into effect, any deal that gets signed later could be retroactive. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve could also take emergency action to keep the recovery afloat.

It’s not certain that Obama will have the fortitude to make it to January without surrendering to demands to cut a deal. He will have to endure a concerted persuasion campaign by the business lobby and the cries of the fiscal scolds, which will grow to a deafening volume by December. But if he does, Obama will have a stronger hand than he has had at any time before. On the eve of his inauguration, he will find himself holding the political high ground in the midst of a perceived economic crisis. He will demand that Republicans retreat on their refusal to increase taxes on the rich, and join him at the table.