Finally, finally someone finally puts the truth out there. Was just listening to Chris Hayes and he finally explains how no one really cares about the debt and deficit and this whole Fiscal Cliff thingie is total street theatre........
...the first point is that if they cared about the debt and deficit, they never would have pushed for the extension of the Bush tax cuts as all it did was add billion and billions to the debt and deficit. Yes Mikey(apologies to all the Mikes out there), every dollar in tax cuts goes directly to adding to debt and deficit FIRST(reducing revenue). Then you wait for the trickle down to piss all over you - at least that's the Republican theory. This is the connection that is never admitted by them - the impact of a tax cut or extending unemployment to the debt and deficit gods is exactly ZERO. It's just who gets the money - the Makers, because you can only give tax cuts to those who are taxable or the Takers - that's their argument but they want to frame it in terms of the debt and deficit and some people and most of the press buy that.
The second point is that if the Bush tax cuts are let to expire, every single dollar of that will reduce the debt and deficit which is what the Republicans keep wanting to do.
Now let's deal with the spending cuts - every single dollar of spending cut of course directly reduces debt and deficit. All right, so the Republicans should love that?
And oh by the way, there are a number of tools that the President has that will make sure that there is zero actual financial impact. That does not mean that the Republicans will not use it to fan the flames and thus create financial impact. For example, Treasury can order that actual tax deductions from your payroll be computed at the current rates till this is resolved. Seriously. Spending cuts don't happen on day 1. They are gradually felt in spending programs. There was an excellent discussion on this on CSPAN by an ex acting CBO Director a few months ago with a couple of simple slides that I'm trying to find that went through all the tools to mitigate every single risk factor associates with the Fiscal Cliff.
This is a big joke.