By Bill Maher
Now that the election dust has settled, and the big GOP donors have
cut off Karl Rove's thumbs, and Donald Trump's syphilis has runs its
course, everyone is talking about the "fiscal cliff." In fact, President
Obama talked about it in his first appearance as a "two-termer." After
which, let’s face it, he's going to be completely gray. He's going to
look like Uncle Ben. Happens to every president. You age exponentially.
Can you imagine what McCain would have looked like if he'd been
president? He'd look like "
Blue" from
Old School.
What is the fiscal cliff? It's basically a built-in punishment if
Congress and the President don't do their homework. Since they couldn't
get a deal done last year, this is what they agreed to do in 2011 in
order to raise the debt ceiling: come January 2013, automatic tax hikes
and spending cuts would kick in that would be so large ($800 billion,
according to the CBO) and abrupt that everyone pretty much agrees it'd
send the economy back into recession. The Bush tax cuts expire. Obama's
payroll tax cut expires. $55 billion cut from defense spending and $55
from nondefense discretionary spending. Basically, we'd be taking a good
deal more out of paychecks and whacking government spending at the same
time, which is going to do real damage. And if the Republicans could
blame it on Obama they'd probably be for it. But chances are they'll get
blamed, so they aren't.
So the President and John Boehner have to go golfing again. And these
two do not have a relationship like Reagan and Tip O'Neill. Most of
what they're fighting over is, of course, the tax cuts for the wealthy.
Obama wants to extend the middle class tax cuts, but feels that we can't
afford the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and that those have to go back
to Clinton-era rates. He also ran on this and won. Also, about
two-thirds of Americans agree with him.
Republicans, of course, pretend that all that stands between us and
darkest night are tax cuts for job creators, and that even though the
Bush tax cuts are a huge contributor to the current deficits they say
they despise, they're also perfectly crafted and must never be touched.
Make sense? I didn't think so.
Interestingly enough, the CBO put out a
report
saying that tax hikes on the rich really don't hurt the economy the way
Republicans contend: "Allowing income tax rates to rise for wealthy
Americans, and maintaining rates for the less affluent, would not hurt
U.S. economic growth much in 2013."
And this goes to the larger problem everyone is talking about
post-election: Republicans live in their own world, where the key to job
growth isn't anything but lowering tax rates for job creators. That's
not their belief based on evidence. It's their religion based on faith.
And the non-partisan number crunchers at the CBO are saying, "No, that's
not really true." It shaves a fraction of a point off GDP growth, and
in return you get about $1 trillion in revenue over the next ten years.
Hmm. Non-partisan number crunchers say one thing, Republican Party
says another thing is true, and blows off the number crunchers. Where
have we seen this before?
Now, the inability for our government to deal with this stuff is a
real problem. It spooks the markets. It's already spooking the markets.
They're going to need to do a deal. But in the past Republicans have
basically held the economy hostage for tax cuts for the wealthy. When
these deadlines neared, and ratings agencies started downgrading us, and
the markets started tumbling, Obama gave in. Maybe that was smart,
maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was all he could do. But now it's different.
He holds the cards now. He won the election on this.
Some are arguing for Obama to hold his ground, even if it means we go
over the cliff a little bit. Because this time everyone will know who
to blame. It'll be like when the Republicans shut down the government
thinking it would make Clinton look bad, but it ended up backfiring.
The threat of tanking the economy is the only card the Republicans
have to play. Obama is proposing a middle-class tax cut for the 98
percent of Americans who make less than $250,000 a year, letting the
Bush tax cuts expire for those earning more. If the Republicans block
it, everyone's taxes will rise on Jan. 1.
So that's where we are. Let the golf outings begin.