Obama's Deal From a poor Person's Perspective

[ProSense]

26. Only as

"ProSense, the spending cuts have yet to be negotiated."

...they relate to this deal. Conversely, those who advocate going over the cliff are basically saying they're willing to live with the consequences of the already signed into law spending cuts.

They're focused on the expiration of all the tax cuts as the most important thing, putting the spending cuts, extension of unemployment and other aid secondary to that goal. I know because I accepted that to let the tax cuts expire meant postponing any extension or even losing some of these programs and accepting the spending cuts.

Howard Dean: "I think the smart thing to do here is to go over the cliff..."
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10022097157

Robert Reich:

More importantly, the fiscal cliff is on the President’s side as well. If we go over it, he and the Democrats in the next Congress that starts later this week can quickly offer legislation that grants a middle-class tax cut and restores most military spending. Even rabid Republicans would be hard-pressed not to sign on.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10022110382

Krugman acknowledges that some things will be lost.

As background, it’s important to understand what Obama clearly could have gotten just by going over the cliff. Basically, he could have gotten the whole of the Bush high-end tax cuts reversed, which would mean close to $800 billion in revenue over the next decade. What he couldn’t get, or at least couldn’t count on getting, were various spending items. This included the extension of unemployment benefits and various “refundables” on things like the Earned Income Tax Credit, that is, pieces of tax legislation that end up having the government cut checks to families instead of the other way around.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/conceder-in-chief-2/

The deal also states that every $1 in spending cuts negotiated in the next round, must be accompanied by $1 in tax increases.

Tax increases! Additional revenue is built into the deal.

From the perspective of someone like the OP, getting aid (current deal) is not worse than facing cuts to social programs (going over the cliff).