As chair of her party’s Senate campaign arm, the architect of surprising Democratic gains and the incoming chair of the powerful Senate Budget Committee, Murray now occupies a place of special influence in the Senate.Read the rest here.
And so what Murray has to say about the “fiscal cliff,” a combination of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January, may be of particular importance. In a town consumed by talk of the apocalyptic consequences of failing to resolve the budgeting crisis, Murray has been arguing that missing the deadline for a deal — going over the cliff — could actually make getting a deal easier.
Personally I am not all that horrified by the fiscal cliff. If we go over the cliff we will cut spending in both the welfare and warfare state and finally end the ill-conceived Bush tax cuts. The deficit would be cut in half at a stroke. I don't see any other proposals out there that even come close to a meaningful attack on the national debt.
Sure, if I was dictator for a day I would be a bit more discriminating in how I cut the budget deficit. But I have no confidence in the congressional clowns' capacity for anything other than finding some way to kick the can down the road again. Fasten your seat-belts folks. We need to go over the cliff.
You're OK with taxes going up in a recession (even if it's not a recession, the "growth" is worse than anemic)? What the hell kind of libertarian are you?
ReplyDeleteI am a monarchist first though my leanings are libertarian. As for taxes and the economy this is a pay me now or pay me later situation. There is no way in the hot stinky bad place that you will EVER get a majority of congress clowns to cut the budget deeply enough to rein in our out of control debt. Given the unhappy choice between tax and spend on the one hand and borrow and spend on the other I will take tax and spend as the lesser of evils.
ReplyDeleteBut let's be clear here. There is no painless way out of this mess. The longer we put it off though, the worse it's going to be.
The annual deficit will likely be going down until about 2020 anyway because of the social security trust fund surplus.
ReplyDeleteThe annual deficit will likely be going down until about 2020 anyway because of the social security trust fund surplus.
ReplyDeleteDon't try this at home.