Prepare to Dive Off the Fiscal Cliff
Posted at 8:45 a.m. on Nov. 15, 2012
Much of the recent discussion around the “fiscal cliff” has focused on reading the tea leaves in speeches from President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), but Stan Collender notes that “there are as many new reasons to conclude that preventing the cliff from going into effect…is still more likely to happen after than before it occurs.”
“The limited time between the start of the lame-duck session and when the cliff begins obviously couldn’t change… Also, as was fully expected before the elections, there are still a large number of incumbents who, because they lost or decided not to run again, are true lame-duck members of Congress whose attention will increasingly be focused elsewhere over the next six weeks.”
“That was what’s the same. Now add the following new developments. First, the largely unexpected increase in their majority means Senate Democrats have less incentive to compromise on anything… Second, there also appears to be a growing realization among House Republicans that they have become the last bastion of GOP power in Washington… An additional new factor is that the understanding that the fiscal cliff is really more of a fiscal slope that won’t create an immediate economic catastrophe.”
