Open Discussion:
Despite the fact that the world seems to care more about Petraeus’ affair than the impending fiscal disaster, there is a clock ticking for when Congress will need to reach an agreement about how to reduce the United Staes’ deficit.
CNN explains that “[i]n a post-election survey concerning the fiscal cliff conducted by Pew Research Center, about half of respondents believe Congress will fail to reach an agreement to reduce the nation’s deficit compared to only 38% who said a deal will be met.”
And if we do fall off the fiscal cliff, the majority of respondents said they would blame the Republicans for getting us there.
What do you think? Will we fall off the fiscal cliff? If so, who’s fault will it be?
Even more importantly, what do you believe should be done to help resolve the conflict, as well as help reduce our deficit?
Im curious if this gridlock would affect the payment of your armed forces. I remember reading reports before the decision to revisit the budget at a later date, that if the agreement couldnt be reached that salaries would not be paid and this was causing consternation in the services.
What would happen to the troops, and what could be the likely outcome of their not being paid
Its ridiculous to blame the Republicans only. Both sides are responsible.
False. The sort of “both sides are to blame” nonsense is the biggest enabler for the bad behavior of the right wingers. The democrats have never held the global economy hostage in an attempt to extort policy they could not pass.
I believe the bargain outlined in Third Way Report is the place to start. Raises taxes. Limits on Entitlements. It is 36 pages; beyond Twitter attention span but well worth a read. http://content.thirdway.org/publications/613/Third_Way_Report_-_The_Bargain.pdf
The terrorism of the GOP must be stopped. This hostage taking has no place in our politics and President Obama needs to put an end to it.
The U.S. Don’t take us all down with you pretty pllleeeeassee?? 😛
The blame game is pointless in any objective sense. Sure, the blame game is the central feature of political debate, but it won’t be all that constructive. It won’t be constructive, in part because whichever party blames the other will have to draw an arbitrary line in the historical timeline and call that the defining moment, as opposed to ten years before or ten months after. Historically, the ultimate culprit is probably Alexander Hamilton and his political coalition who set up the principles of running a federal deficit. If we’re doing the party blame game, blame the party that’s now… Read more »