If taxing the rich is good for the economy, should we bring on the Cliff?

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1. the cliff is a mix of good, bad, and just plain stupid.

taxing the rich more is good, as is treating all income more equally for tax purposes.
but the hikes for those lower on the income ladder is not so good, and the accross the board spending cuts is just plain stupid. even if you believe that lower government spending overall is appropriate, doing it in this fashion is stupid.

the bottom line is that the spending cuts would push us into recession.

worse, republicans will then claim it was the tax hikes on the rich that caused the recession, and they'd use that as proof we need low taxes for the rich for decades to come.


solving the problem around, say, mid-to-late january would not really be much of a problem. we don't really need to meet the end of year deadline. but if it drags on until march or april that would be very bad.

personally, i think our negotiating position only gets better in january, so we should not be bothered if an agreement doesn't happen until then.