Comments on: Five political realities about the fiscal cliff

By: Steve Eggleston

Steve Eggleston — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 13:04:10 +0000

Shorter Ambinder – “We won, fsck you.”

By: davidk

davidk — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:55:37 +0000

Continued stimulus is radical; it’s not even Keynesian.

theperfecteconomist on December 5, 2012 at 9:22 PM

Birther!

By: cam2

cam2 — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:54:34 +0000

Mimzey on December 5, 2012 at 10:44 PM

My pleasure. Really.

By: Mimzey

Mimzey — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:44:29 +0000

You’re welcome.

cam2 on December 5, 2012 at 10:36 PM

I kneeew it was going to be the Krug. Thanks!

By: cam2

cam2 — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:36:20 +0000

Where.Are.The.Economists? Where are they? Where are the voices of basic math? This country is being destroyed and no one has thought that maybe we should have the direct voices of economists heard?? Mimzey on December 5, 2012 at 8:31 PM

Here you go, a Nobel Prize winning economist:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/three-card-budget-monte/

You’re welcome.

By: Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:12:58 +0000

Call Obama’s bluff. Send the Simpson-Bowles plan to the Senate. Then go home for the Christmas.

By: Dollayo

Dollayo — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:07:59 +0000

It is hard to see Republicans rolling over and becoming Keynesians, agreeing to significant new stimulus and abandoning their appetite for spending reductions. But it is hard to see how the year begins with a $2,000 tax hike for middle class Americans. It is true that Washington knows what to do; they haven’t figured out how to do it just yet.

So what he is saying is that Obama and the democrats are holding middle class tax rates hostage to the whims of democrat polices.

By: Gingotts

Gingotts — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:57:04 +0000

If any of this crap were true, then what you’d have is a slam-dunk position for Obama that he’s pissing away over the dictatorial desire for unilateral control of the debt ceiling. So that leaves the following options.

1. The whole article is crap.
2. Obama wants the cliff, not a deal.

And no, the two aren’t mutually exclusive…

By: FlareCorran

FlareCorran — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:38:20 +0000

Some pundits say that Obama’s newly confident negotiating posture is the result of lessons learned during the first term wrestling over the debt limit and budgets: He could offer the farm for free and Republicans wouldn’t accept it.

Any pundit that says that is a hack.

What Republicans should have learned the first time around was “don’t let Obama into negotiations. Negotiate with the other Democrats instead.” Obama was almost single-handedly responsible for the negotiations failing.

Of course, the real problem is that Republicans were still blamed for those negotiations failing, in spite of the fact that they were willing to compromise. The Democrats remember that. They’re not going to give if they think that Republicans will get the blame for it.

By: theperfecteconomist

theperfecteconomist — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:22:06 +0000

5. Obama's proposal is not that radical. The economy needs continued stimulus

Continued stimulus is radical; it's not even Keynesian.