"Fiscal cliff" show getting nowhere fast
With every day, it seems more likely that we will actually go off the precipice and see what happens. Maybe the new Congress and the White House can work something out and fix everything retroactively come January or February, but that's an even bet at best. In any event, it's looking like a highly screwed-up tax filing season is ahead of us. The IRS can't really publish the 2012 forms until the current clown show comes to a conclusion.
| Posted at 4:44 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (8)
The fiscal cliff is January 1. The vote for the next Speaker of the House is on January 3. If Boehner makes a deal with the Maoist-in-Chief before then, he doesn't get to be Speaker again.
Yes, Virginia, we're going over the cliff.
Posted by Bean | December 19, 2012 5:20 AM
Hey, it's looking great. So far, the President has plans to toss the oldest, poorest widows into the Catfood Club so that the wealthy may hang onto another 3.6% of $150,000 of net taxable income.
Posted by Allan L. | December 19, 2012 5:39 AM
I find it instructive that much of the media coverage is on taxes and mentions spending as an afterthought.
Posted by David E Gilmore | December 19, 2012 6:49 AM
I'm sort of hoping we do go off the so-called fiscal cliff. After all, it was Congress that voted for it in the past. Now the taxpayers will find out there are indeed consequences for electing these folks to Congress.
Posted by Dave A. | December 19, 2012 7:27 AM
The fiscal cliff is like the Surge in the Iraq War. Why dwell on the fact that the Iraq War was going so poorly when you can divert attention to the Surge: How's the Surge going? Will it work? Will it fail?
It's all still about the derivatives problem. The "Too big to fail" banks are bigger, and the scary numbers are even scarier. US banks are exposed to derivatives to the tune of 227 trillion dollars. That's not a misprint: 227 trillion.
A former US Treasury official describes it as "beyond science fiction."
Nothing that comes out of the Fiscal Cliff addresses the fundamental problem of the world economy: Exposure to derivatives. So in that sense, the Fiscal Cliff is a sideshow. How did Shakespeare put it, in what became the title of a William Faulkner book? "Sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Posted by Bill McDonald | December 19, 2012 8:21 AM
The IRS can't really publish the 2012 forms until the current clown show comes to a conclusion. I understand why they can't publish the 2013 withholding tables, but why can't they publish the 2012 forms? What's retroactive about the fiscal cliff?
Posted by Bill Holmer | December 19, 2012 9:32 AM
The alternative minimum tax, for one thing. And several other expired provisions that have a way of coming back retroactively.
Posted by Jack Bog | December 19, 2012 10:35 AM
TIme to rip off the band-aid. Let the "sequester" cuts stay in place AND raise taxes a little for everyone. This problem isn't going to fix itself in the next ten years as the argument goes to keep raising government spending habits while holding firm (or reducing) taxes. Yes, it hurts, but it will hurt more later on.
* Coming from a somewhat right of center voter.
Posted by Mike (the other one) | December 19, 2012 11:55 AM