5-point guide to the "fiscal cliff"

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(clicky)so what the heck is that fiscal cliff thing all about, anyway?
p.s. - i did the first two poll choices wrong, i shoulda prefaced them with "prior to going over the fiscal cliff," i hope that makes the first two poll choices seem more sensible. thank you all for your patience

GOP will probably cave. Obama was reelected and now Obama care will inevitably be law of the land. Social insurance as it exists will go out the window and taxes will be raised to pay for the new bureaucracy to oversee Obamacare, which is kind of a social insurance in its own right.

I'm not happy about this, but this is probably reality.

i surely appreciate being able to get real health insurance for the first time in ages. no more pre-existing conditions clauses plus sliding-scale premium supports for working class types.

I think the GOP will eventually cave but not without first leading us over the cliff and using the media to advertise it.

You realize that you're not going to be given health insurance by the government? You have to some how acquire it or pay a penalty tax for not having it. Unless you're saying getting private health coverage will be easier now if insurance companies can't be as quick to reject people.

i am well aware that i will have to purchase it from an official exchange [similar to "the connector" in mass.] but i am glad that i will get help in affording it just the same. at my age, they'd charge 10 times as much as they'd charge a young whippersnapper otherwise. global rating [another feature of ACA] will reduce this age-based disparity a bit.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they pushed us off the cliff, then charge us for the service and the fall.
Politicians: That's be $1,260.
Citizen: What?
Politicians: Well, it's $1.00 per foot. Oh, wait, let's not forget the service fee for having one of our finest heave your corpulent frame (and additional bulky/heavy item surcharges) over said cliff. That now brings your total to $10,279.95. G'day!

Last edited by CyborgUprising on 28 Nov 2012, 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

we shall soon find out in another few weeks.

Both sides want to raise taxes and cut benefits, because they have spent everything.

No one can vote to increase taxes, and survive in office, so we get this play where both are defending us, but taxes go up and cuts are made.

It is too little too late, as we are over spending a Trillion a year, and all of the increases and cuts add up to less than two Trillion over the next ten years.

too bad ours isn't a parliamentary system like in the commonwealth, where one party or another rules definitively [sometimes via coalitions with strange bedfellows].

A compromise will be found at the eleventh hour, simply because neither side can be seen to be responsible for ripping out 5% of the United States' economy at a stroke.

In the medium term, I strongly believe that the bean counters will look north, and recognize that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was the central plank in Canada's restoration of fiscal balance in the 1990's. I suspect that the United States will have a 5% value-added tax before the decade is out.

The idea of a deadline, with aweful results, is what got us to the edge of the cliff.

It was not just an election year ploy, like the debt limit, it is a long term inability to govern, because of the rising cost of government, has eaten a hole in the economy.

People blame Bush, but the economy he inhereted was coming off the Dotcom Bust, and employment was falling. He took the traditional steps of tax cuts, sending out Bush Bucks, and starting wars. Like the current crop he tried to borrow his way out of debt.

He also started a large government employment program, to watch people naked in airports, dig through their bags, watch porn all day, and spy on everyone on the internet, he called it Homeland Security, and the only ones who benefited were those who got the jobs created.

Due to a lack of real business, something that has been in decline for decades, mortgage qualifications were adjusted, so anyone could buy a home, which kept construction, building materials, and banking going.

NAFTA sounded good, opening a broader market, but the results were sending American Factories abroad. $5 a day labor just across the border sounded good, but it opened the market to $2 a day Chinese labor.

Without a broad base of good middle class jobs, and in the private sector that pays Social Security, taxes can never cover government costs. The last wave of middle class, the war babies, are starting to retire, now not paying taxes and collecting $1500 a month from Social Security.

They paid for it, over 15% of lifetime earnings, it is not a government gift, it is a debt. The payouts are just starting, and already the list of government spending is half to Defense, and half to Social Security.

The government has not gone to more spending, just funding existing programs, Unemployment for 99 weeks, Food Stamps for 45 Million. This accounts for the Trillion a year spent above income.

In all prior Recessions going back to WWII, employment recovered, and grew, in less than two years. Not this time. Extending Unemployment, creating government jobs, increasing food stamps, softened the recession, and decreased as recovery took over. Not this time.

The jobs that are available, Minimum Wage, pay 30% less in buying power than the same in 1968. That is if you could find full time, not the under 32 hours a week where some benefits kick in. It is not enough to rent a place, and eat, much less drive a Consumer Economy.

That still leaves 15 Million unable to find any work. Another 30 Million part time who qualify for food stamps.

The rate of job creation is less than population growth, those jobs do not exist for new grads, and at the rate of 100,000 new jobs a month, unemployment will never go down.

Raising taxes on the consuming poor will not raise much, but it will make the bottom lower.

The only option is print more money, and pretend the system works. The Republicans are saying they will block that.

The Government should be in Default by the second quarter. It will affect the Bond Rating, Interest Rates will go up, things will get worse.

This game is called, "Only Congress can save us from Congress."

That is right. The economy began to tank in 2000, before Dubya took the oath of office.

ruveyn

Until there is a serious third party challenge, the two parties will continue to fight for power and America will continue to suffer and decline.

Actually we're in danger of becoming a one party system, that's what Obama and the media want.

Fact of the matter is, Obama doesn't want a deal, he doesn't care if America goes over the fiscal cliff. His cronies in the media will just blame Republicans, and Republicans will get blamed for anything that goes bad no matter what.

If you look at what Obama's proposing, it's all tax increases with maybe (and I use the term loosely) some spending cuts later.

and somebody is seriously implying that the teapublicans DON'T want a one-party system [with themselves in charge]?