As the president and House Speaker John Boehner face off over the fiscal cliff, members of both sides are arguing that going over the cliff may well be the best move.
The National Review’s Jim Geraghty argued on Friday’s Morning Joe that going over the fiscal cliff isn’t so bad for Republicans.
Obama seems totally, totally convinced that if we go over the fiscal cliff, this benefits him. The public will blame the Republicans. OK, I suppose it’s entirely possible and entirely probable, but does Obama really want to start the second term going back into recession?
Sequestration and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for everyone is the best option for the Republicans. At least under that you can dispel this notion…this attitude of the public that you can solve the problem of the debt and we can solve the problem of entitlements by raising taxes on the rich a little bit and that’s fundamentally untrue.
But on Thursday, Howard Dean argued for the same end, for different reasons.
It’s safer if you’re on the progressive end of the political spectrum to go over the cliff than to agree to some of the things they’re talking about…We’re in deep trouble here and somebody’s gotta pay the bill and I think it’s going to be all of us. You cut some defense spending, which isn’t going to get cut otherwise because there are defense contractors in nearly every congressional district in the place and you do make some human service cuts which I don’t like, but everybody’s going to have to put something on the table here.
Are we headed over the fiscal cliff? What do you think?
Jane Timm