Cliffs and Whining Roads

The election is over.....For those of us in the real world it is...Still , I keep hearing of ridiculousness of several citizens in several states calling for their state to secede from the union, of people being laid off because their company heads are angry that President Obama got elected and of companies cutting back hours because they do not want to pay the healthcare costs of so called ''Obamacare"

This is a lot of sour grapes...This is people who just can't accept the fact that their candidate lost...and so they want to make the public pay and blame it on the president...Childish and crazy and fueled by Fox News and the right wing media.

It could backfire against them...It should backfire against them.  My thing is...Whether they like it or not...He is the president once again and the world didn't end....When George Bush won the election in 2000, I was sick to my stomach, I railed on and on about how he stole the election...I was angry for weeks...but in time...I got over it.   I don't recall anybody getting fired or laid off or any hours being cut back either because of it... I don't recall anybody petitioning to secede from the union either... Just these yahoos...Just these poor spoiled babies, who can't accept the fact that their candidate lost...

I hope no one is getting too upset about this craziness....They'll all get over it...Not one state, not one state will secede from the union....And for those people who got laid off or got their hours cut...This will affect their  companies in the long run and they may have to reverse their decisions...I'm really amazed at such childishness....

II-

That said...We do have some serious business to attend to....The so called  Fiscal Cliff.


The "fiscal cliff," a metaphor drawn from nature, was actually created by members of the U.S. Congress, the Republicans in the U.S. Congress mind you, who designed it to be so horrible that they and the president would come to their senses and avert it in the nick of time.

Well, that time is now with the start this week of a lame-duck session of Congress. But it is not at all certain that Republicans and Democrats are ready to make the compromises necessary to undo the trap they set themselves  in August 2011.

With all the time available since then, optimists assumed that Congress and President Barack Obama would return after last week's elections with a plan - perhaps a temporary fix - to avoid the $600 billion in tax increases and budget cuts set to start in January that threaten to throw the economy back into recession.
But they didn't.


Some people also assumed the election would give one party or the other an edge that could break the impasse over how to reduce the nation's deficit.

It didn't.

Both Republicans and Democrats say publicly and privately that they have the advantage – and a mandate from voters to do things their way. It remains to be seen whether such assertions are just opening moves.
Once again, optimists assume the parties will rescue themselves – and the country – from the crisis they created. But confidence is low, which is one reason global markets tumbled last week.


For 16 months now, Democrats and Republicans have been behaving like a husband and wife in an ugly divorce proceeding, not speaking to each other except through invective.

Now they will see if their troubled marriage can be salvaged, for the sake of the children, which in this case is the U.S. economy. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reiterated last week that jumping off the cliff would boost the jobless rate to 9 percent from the current 7.9 percent.

For President Obama, who won four more years in office in Tuesday's election, this is his moment to bring a "balanced approach" to healing the nation's fiscal problems. In the Democrat's eyes, that means keeping lower tax rates for the poor and middle class, while forcing the rich to pay more income taxes. White House spokesman Jay Carney renewed the president's vow to veto legislation that simply extends the tax cuts, which originated during the administration of President George W. Bush.

If Republicans were to agree to the higher tax rates on the wealthy, that would open the door to deals on a new round of spending cuts, including sensitive "entitlement" programs, such as the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly, some Democrats say privately.

The top U.S. Republican, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, does not see it that way. He has long argued that raising taxes on top earners would hurt small-business hiring and slow an already sluggish economy.

With voters giving Republicans another two years to rule the House,Speaker of the House, John Boehner argues it would be a mistake for President Obama to conclude that he has a mandate from voters to hike income taxes.

"Instead of raising tax rates on the American people and accepting the damage it will do to our economy, let's start to actually solve the problem," Boehner said in a Saturday radio address.

"Let's focus on tax reform that closes special-interest loopholes and lowers tax rates," he added.
The problem is that tax reform will take months, if not years, to do in Congress, and lawmakers have only about six weeks to avert the fiscal cliff by at least coming up with a short-term compromise and addressing more radical reform in the following months.

A senior Senate Democratic aide said Republicans were "underestimating the bully pulpit he (President Obama) has. He's going to focus on this and this alone for the next two months. They're underestimating his ability to sway the American people" if they block a tax hike on the rich.

The Democratic aide said that if President Obama produced a new plan for avoiding the fiscal cliff, including higher income taxes on the rich, "Boehner's reaction to that document will be the most pivotal point" in the upcoming fight.

I don't know where this fight will go from here...but it's the fight every American ought to be watching....Not the foolishness of those who only watch Fox News and are sticking their heads in the sand and concocting even more foolish scenarios!