Here’s the problem with Washington: The so-called Republican leadership have no principles except getting re-elected. So, they have no spines when it comes to standing up for anything, except getting re-elected. So, they tend to waffle and then let the Dims have their way. The other problem is that the Dims’ have principles but they are all wrong. So, the only solution is to let the Dims have their way until the American people learn what the correct principles are. Or, actually, re-learn them, because we used to know and understand them. Yes, it will be painful to go over the fiscal cliff. But, the problem is if we don’t go over the cliff here, the cliff is higher and more dangerous farther down the road. So, we either take our medicine now, or suffer more until we take a bigger and more bitter dose of medicine later on. Wishing is not strategy, nor is it medicine.

People have to realize that the Republican Party has moved to the leftjust past center. That means they aren’t quite as bad as a full fledged DemocRAT. Boehner wants the same thing that the Democrats want but he wants it to be his idea not theirs. It’s hard to be tough when you don’t have a spine or principles. Boehner has neither. The GOP is a has been Party. The haven’t had a real sucess story since Ronald Reagan. The likes of Karl Rove, Micheal Steele, Boehner, McCain, McConnell etc etc etc are ntohging more than Liberals that don’t spend as much as Democratic Liberals. Boehner hates conservatives and would throw them all out of the Party if he could. I will no longer consider myself a Republican and i have been a Registered REpublican for 50 years. Well no more of that. It is time for conservatives to stand up for what is right and defeat the Republicans and teh Democrats or at least go down fighting. Republicans are going to take a hit on the Cliff anyway so they might as well take the dive. Maybe Just Maybe people will wakeup to what Obama is trying to do to America.

well and sadly said.

Pull the 800 billion stimulus out of the baseline (which was sold as a “one and done” but like everything else in Washington never goes away) and implement the penny plan from Connie Mack, index medicare and SS to life expectancy and the case is closed ( as long as the republican guvnors do not set up Obama care exchanges). The American people will never really feel any cut.

The republicans lost only a few votes in the 2012 election, Obama lost 8 million. Were it not for a couple of senatorial candidates that could not chew gum and walk we would be in the same position we have been in for the last few years.

If it were not for the power of deficit spending and borrowing think what a different people we would be. Self reliant, innovative and creative. Costs would matter in our daily lives in all arenas including government expenditures.

We gave it all away (as Thomas Jefferson predicted) and have become dependent wards replacing market demands with simple government or taxpayer funded demands to be purchased by borrowing and repaid later.
Government regulated handouts are the new economic system, creep creep creep.

This is chicken little thinking – grow a spine. (meant in good nature – you may be right about repubs getting the blame but I hope not)

These tax increases are the direct result of the unbudgeted deficits that the federal government has run for the last four years and the corresponding growth in the federal debt. It’s certainly true that the Bush administration bears some blame as well but he’s not running the show anymore.

Taxes have to go up to reconcile the budget. The democrats had a chance to pursue the reduced spending path and they declined. Now we get to see what’s behind door #2.

A couple of weeks back streiff wrote two excellent front page diaries on this topic as well. They referenced the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the results of walking away from the negotiations and letting the automatic cuts and tax increases take place. I have also read those reports and am even more shocked by the response of the Republicans than I was before. In interview after interview, Republican lawmakers and establishment pundits repeat the first part of the CBO analysis; that going “over the cliff” will set us back into recession and raise unemployment to +/- 9.1 percent. They harp and lament the distress of this as they try to make us believe that the only way out of an endless morass is to compromise with the Democrats since they have the upper hand. What those same commenters fail to say is found in the latter part of the report; that is, that the combination of tax rises and budget cuts will take effect if carried over year to year during the ten year cycle and that we will come out of the recession within 1-2 years and the budget deficit will begin to shrink. Unemployment will begin to drop and by 2018, just five years away, it will be at around 5.5 percent. Read the report here:

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43694

It is basically make or break time for us all right now. The ability to turn this economy around and shrink the massive federal deficit will never be at a point like this again in that it will only be harder and take longer to turn around as each year passes. We can weather this storm and survive a stronger and more prosperous nation if we will bite the bullet, take the short term pain, and fix this problem.
The Republican leadership and punditry are afraid of the American people. They believe we are all short sighted takers like the Obamaphone lady, who will not accept what must happen and that is why they, as a group, have refused to do the right thing. We must fight them with letters, e-mails, phone calls and any other communications we can muster and force them to listen to us. If they refuse, then we must make their nightmare come true and return them to provate life when the next primaries arrive, replacing them with active conservatives who will do the right thing for the country and not worry about their own re-election bid. I hold that doing the right thing by the country will make their re-election assured as people recognize the economic improvements arising around them.
The fiscal cliff fiction is nothing more than the governmental version of stock market correction which must occur from time to time in order to stabilize inflated worth. Thinking of it in that light and realizing that the stock market survives and grows over time, should help with the understanding of the necessity of this current action.

First, let’s understand what’s going on. This isn’t a deal the Republicans are going to take. Everyone knows that. It’s a ridiculous deal. This is a classic negotiation tactic. The point of it of course is to lowball an offer so as to leave plenty of room to arrive at the deal you eventually want. Now there is risk to having too low-ball an offer. If you are coming from a position of weakness, you get laughed out of the room usually. If you want a house and you bid 50 grand under the asking price, 3 days after it’s on the market – you are going to see the seller shut you out, bc you are obviously unserious. Now on the other hand, if you are in a position of strength, you see the other party scramble to concede ground.

Obviously the president believes they have all the leverage, so they can offer something ridiculous and the Republicans will start making all sorts of concessions. I think he overplayed his hand as unserious. The best next move by Republicans should be to shut the door on Obama/Geitner. They don’t need to negotiate with him. They need to negotiate with Harry Reid. Obama is going to sign anything as he always does. He is completely unserious. He is NOT even in the room. The Republicans are conceding ground by even humoring dealing with his lacky Geitner who is an errand-boy for the president. I believe they will do this because they have done it before. They should laugh at/ignore the president’s offer and begin actual discussions w/Reid.

Reid is not much better, but at least HE is a decision maker. HE holds the keys. Geitner doesn’t. Obama doesn’t. You have to craft a deal with Reid. The Republicans gave Obama a chance to be a triangulator, and as usual he passed on that. I feel like this deal is his way of getting out of negotiations so that he can work on his tan in Hawaii.

Exactly, in regards to Obama, like he always does, he votes present.

I agree with what you say but waiting for the American people to learn is “Pie in the sky”, don’t hold your breath. Like I said in my post a few minutes ago, 47% of people don’t pay taxes so why would they care about the fiscal cliff, their taxes aren’t going to go up.

Once again, counselor, I agree–to almost embarrassing detail–with you.

Since I started first casually noticing and then more actively getting interested in politics about a quarter century back, I’ve never seen the federal public sector, its spending, or its revenue, shrink. I’ve only seen it all grow, not only in scope and size, but also in the unrealistic promises it makes, regardless of which party dominates.

I think the proverbial writing is pretty much on the proverbial wall: “democrat” and “republican” politicians are all cut from the same or at least very similar bolts of cloth. I often think that the supposed adverity between the two parties is nothing more than a contrived mirage to keep voters divided and fuel marketing interests.
Auburn versus Alabama; Michigan versus Ohio State; Army versus Navy; republican versus democrat; Ford versus Chevy; it all seems about the same to me.
“Hooray for our side.”

Political differences notwithstanding, these people–these politicians–seem to be of the same mind. They want to get more wealthy and more powerful, and they won’t do anything that doesn’t contribute to those ends.

They won’t impose term limits on their own abilities become more wealthy and more powerful. They won’t reduce the costly, parasitic, non-self-sustaining bureaucracy that surrounds and protects them like a thick, gooey, protoplasmic placenta. They won’t subject themselves to the laws they pass (and in that, they’re very much like a communist system’s “party elite”). They won’t decrease the lavish benefits–lifelong salaries, healthcare and security–they’ve granted themselves.

These characteristics don’t seem isolated among just republicans or just democrats; they seem common among all people–male, female, black, white, Christian, Jew, Muslim, young, old, left, right, gay, straight–who seek political positions. They want more for themselves and–seeing as it’s no fun to be rich unless most everybody else is poor–less for all the rest.

What’s more, we’ve been naive to expect anything else. The guys who wrote the US Constitution knew: were well-schooled not merely in politics, but in the peculiar psychological makeup of those who seek power. They knew that which we’re experiencing now would happen as surely as they knew the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. What we’re seeing now from our politicians is an inevitability. We should not be surprised.

They knew that the kind of people who seek the power to make laws governing everybody else are not the kind of people who make or even respect laws limiting their own authority. They knew that the kind of people who seek political power are controlled only by the insatiable vacuums within themselves: empty, black holes that consume, and consume, and consume, cannot ever have enough, and never give away anything for the simple goodness of giving.

Political personality types are both necessary and dangerous. The guys who wrote the US Constitution knew this. That’s why they put all kinds of limits on political power.

How do we prevent what amount to sociopathic personality types–again, democrat and republican alike–from selling out everybody and everything to further their own irrational interests? These people know and feel little allegiance to this or any other country, any ideology, or any faith. They won’t to reduce the deficit, cut spending or reduce the size of the controlling organization over which they preside. They won’t protect the US economy from other economies against which, due to standard-of-living differences, we cannot compete: not if they can profit by exploiting those differences, even if doing so causes struggle and suffering among those they’re they’re supposed to protect. It’s simply not in their natures to care, and–again–I think we, or at least I, have been naive to expect anything else.
Politics: it’s a great gig. You spew a little bit of the stuff hay becomes when bulls are through with it, pass a few laws benefiting those who can make you very, very rich, and–viola!–you and your family are sitting pretty for the evermore.
It helps if you go to Harvard, first; ah, Harvard, that font of unquestioned elitism.

A theme that runs throughout your post today: Obama is one of them. He always was. They–democrat and republican alike–welcome him among their ranks. He’s the perfect pacifier: an effective “Pied Piper” whom the masses will follow, and those who’ve given him that job have paid him well; he’s a multi-millionaire now. His wife has a great job. His kids go to the best schools. He’s made some very influential “friends,” and most of the news media cast him as some sort of wise and learned prophet.
All he has to do is play the game: do what he’s told. Get the masses to eagerly hand over more money and more power to those who must have it; he does that very well. He’s kept from “the little people’s” grasp their main bargaining strength by keeping the job market slanted in employers’ favor. He’s kept financial security out of “the little peoples’” hands by ensuring that fuel prices remain high; after all, the country runs on gas, oil and coal. If those prices come down, everything gets easier.
He’s been given a god-like status, and he’s done with it exactly what he’s supposed to do.
Anyway . . ..
Keep writing and broadcasting, Eric. Keep telling it in voice and print. Your voice isn’t completely unique, but it’s one of the few worth hearing.

I almost said that in my post… would not be a pretty sight!

I totally agree with Erik and apparently most of those writing on this thread. The Republicans will be blamed no matter what. As it is, the Reublicans do not have leaders. Those who represent the Republican Party do not lead they only seek to retain power if at all possible. So to stay in office is all they truly do. There is no right way to do a wrong thing. To let the debt continue growing with out taking action is wrong.

I listened to Charles Krauthammer yesterday on Special Report with Brett Brier on Fox and he had it right.

Lee at Appomattox was given better surrender terms than what Geithner/The President are giving to the GOP/Boehner-McConnell.

His suggestion is:
1 boat.
Over the cliff.

I agree.
The republicans are going to be blamed by the lefties for the sun rising. Democrats set up this FISCAL CLIFF bs.

The republicans have got to stop calling it FISCAL CLIFF and instead change the narrative: Obama wants to bankrupt the country! First its $250k but Pelosi’s talking about taking your 401k plan. We’re trying to stop this.

I’d rather have them saying that and being hated by the lefties then playing the other sides game.

I’m getting sick and tired of defense.

Cruz was elected to the Senate. He has nothing to do with Speaker of the House!

That is absolutely true. The only thing I would add is that the media has been able to sell to the American idiot half of the nation that it’s all Bush’s fault. We need to jump over the cliff. No more negotiations just tell us what Obama’s plan is and pass it! The country will immediately go into a deep recession this one called the Obama recession. Republicans will not vote for it but instead vote ABSENT and the consequences then become the Democrats. The media has blindly followed the lemming plunge with words of praise for their savior. What can they say when Obama actually has to implement a disastrous policy that will undoubtedly send our economy into a coma. Two years later we elect responsible representatives and a Republican Senate led by the Conservative Senator who defeats Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Now that is truly salvation!

Jefferson also stated that a little revolution every now and then is a healthy thing. This will take revolutionary thought and strategy.

I was once the head of purchasing at Kraft Foods – about $6 billion per year. The first two rules of negotiation:
1. Be sure that you are talking with somebody who has the authority to make an enforceable deal;
2. Be willing to walk away.
www.RightinSanFrancisco.com

Wrong thinking!

Think about it, what will happen to our economy if we let them do what they want. It is already on the edge of failure. Their path is the path of pain and destruction. Let them prove it!

Erick, the solution to our dilemma is no longer to be found in Washington D.C. When FDR succeeded in opening the federal coffers to provide goodies to the masses, it was the beginning of the end of constitutionally limited government. What we have been living with since is basically a giant ponzi scheme run by the politically connected. The only answer is to quit giving them our dough and refuse to be their slaves. It’s just that simple.

I think you are on to something. Take his magic wand and remove
all the entitlements and tax breaks/loop holes and just start over.
How long will it be before we are fighting amongst ourselves as to
who should get what resource and how much of it. The weak will as
usual get the least and the strong will take away the most.
Nothing will change and the haves will soon find ways to take even
more away from the least strong. That has been the history of
the world and it will happen here as a matter of time.History has
a habit of repeating itself.

I’m just not so sure. In the past 2 years the Republicans had time to try
and sell their budget program. During the past election we had Ryan and
Romney telling the people how their plan was better. However, the public
wasn’t buying. Why do you think the package you’re selling now will be
any better received in 2014 than it was in 2012? It took way larger numbers
than the ’47% to re-elect Obama. So how do you get the non 47% to
buy into your program? And don’t use the MSM as a crutch. There is
more conservative/teaparty stations on the air with more listeners than
the MSM ever has. What say you?

If they don’t want it, they naturally won’t get it. Sure, the public didn’t buy it. And if they again do not buy it, well, they’ve always have what they wanted, they’ll have that again.

Of course, we continue to hold our own beliefs and put forward our own plans, but we cannot push them on the electorate. The people will have the over-tax, over-spend, over-regulate, over-borrow liberal policies they voted for. Even if a temporary deal can be reached, there’s no way to stand against the will of the people.

“The population if this country have made their choices for their government.”

Yeah, and they chose a Republican House Majority.

They weren’t elected (twice) to rubber stamp Obama’s agenda.

Please reread the post. I didn’t say Romney would cut a trillion, in fact the math used here was his justification for not cutting too aggressively. He simply used this math to make his point. We are borrowing $1.3 trillion per year to get a 2% growth rate. If we chose not to borrow that money the real economy is still contracting and if we borrowed none of it (or said another way if we cut $1.3 trillion in federal borrowing and spending) the real economy would shrink about 6.5% from where we are now. So we would go from +2% growth, -6.5% to a negative 3.5% which is why it feels so bad in most of America right now. What I am saying is there is no painless way out now, it is mathematically impossible. We are $30 trillion in debt (HH and Federal combined) and the credit is unsustainable at both the household level and federal level. It is simply the math and the crash that’s coming will be painful no matter whether it’s a controlled crash or an abrupt crash. One will be more painful than the other.

I was only confused by the math used. It may be in the way it was

written. Romney said “if I cut 1 trillion” from the budget the GDP

would go down by 5%. According to your note Romney would

“NOT” cut 1 trillium. So which way is it. I’m in total agreement with

you both that the current gov’t spending is unsustainable. Where

the difficulty comes is what is the best way to accomplish that

goal. It took the whole country and all governments to put

us in this hole. To expect only one party and only one solution

to turn this country around is not going to happen. All of us are in

this to-gether and it will take all of us to sacrifice to put us back

on the right track.

The founding convention 1787 came upon them fast. George Washington decided the current Articles of COnfederation did not work and lack of a coherent national currency policy was going down the road to nowhere.

Mr Jefferson who was active in continential congresses that declred independnce 1774-76 was not present at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia that gave us the constitution. Nor was John Adams, the rock of independence, Both men were serving as foreign ministers in France and England in 1787

James Madison like Alexander Hamilton, younger men along with Jay and Franklin were very active 1787..Later adversaries in 1787 they united joined forces and created a system of federalism that has held. The represenatives of the people had written the constitution and had final say through ratification in state legislatures, not a presiident, governor or court.

The role of Supreme court was not settled 1787.

Later in thoughtful letters to friends Jefferson exptessed the alternative to a supreme cout deciding issues on constitution. He though we should reconvene every seven year and hold a constittuional convention. That process requires delegates at national llevel seeking approval at state level for changes.The people’s representaives and states not far- away judges would maintain their design and approval control of the constitution. We the people and our convention held the law of land but somehow let it go. Most today take it for granted judges inevitabilty to decide connsnntitutionality.

We the people and our reps wrote it and write it by amendment and must stay its authors.

When John Marshall Ch Justice Suprrem ct arbitrarily decided he or his court would hence forth decide constitutionality, that moment may have been one of the largest leaps in regressive moments in US history. In 1804 in Madison v Ma Marshall’s usurption decision declared and was allowed to stand that an unelected life appointed judge would decide what the states and people reps had done in 1787 on constitutionality.

Don’t give it away, Jefferson warned but thought we would.

Let me try just one more time. By the people making their “choices”
is to say the government is now set. For good or bad, for Repubs or
Dems they must work to-gether to make our country work. I believe
both Reps and Dems behind the scenes are working like adults.
Its too bad that the followers of the 2 parties can’t also act like
adults and put more effort into encouraging their congressman
to come up with an acceptable agreement. Will either side be
entirely happy? No. But lets at least start to solve our problems.