Curious about the fiscal cliff?

After almost 2 months of a master class in how not to negotiate, a nasty expletive directed at Harry Reid by John Boehner, not once but twice, and finally two grizzled veterans coming to the country's and market's rescue at the eleventh hour, we finally have a deal to keep our fiscal bus from careening over the fiscal cliff. Ah, painful metaphors.

It looked like we'd be hurtled over the cliff, lying bloodied and broken on the rocks of higher taxes and draconian austerity measures proven by the British to be idiotic, but...look, is that...it can't be...it is! Turtle Face and Big Teeth (their spirit names) have emerged from behind the glaring sun of Medicare cuts, swooped down and grasped us in their talons (their spirit animals have eagle bodies...duh) and deposited us, bruised and slightly bloodied but still breathing back on the road above. Seriously, McConnell and Biden pulled this off.

Is their result worth shouting from the rooftops? Well...

An in-depth look at the final four tense days shows that McConnell and Biden resolved the crisis through old-fashioned backroom bargaining. With each call and each new offer, they pared away a little more of the grand ambitions each side had once held so dear, until all that was left was a modest measure that raised some new tax revenue and left most of the deficit problem intact.
 

The mind-bogglingly pathetic-ness of this whole scenario (At fault - Boehner:75%, Obama:15%, Teabaggers:9%, Sarah Palin (just because):1%) is amplified by looking at the resulting deal. Little cuts, little stimulus, a modest, leveraging-mangling tax hike, and a two-month can-kick down the road that ensures that this exact same scenario will repeat itself in late February, except the Tea Party will be even more emboldened to stand their ground, and the economic damage they can cause by hijacking the debt ceiling, something Jesu-, whoops, Reagan himself raised 18 times, to huge spending cuts will be much, much worse.

But maybe then they can set up a 'Super Committee' to come up with a 'Grand Bargain' that instead fails and sets up huge automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that kick in if no deal is reached...oh sh*t, that was 2011. And history repeats itself...

My homey David Brooks says:

Ultimately, we should blame the American voters. The average Medicare couple pays $109,000 into the program and gets $343,000 in benefits out, according to the Urban Institute. This is $234,000 in free money. Many voters have decided they like spending a lot on themselves and pushing costs onto their children and grandchildren. They have decided they like borrowing up to $1 trillion a year for tax credits, disability payments, defense contracts and the rest. They have found that the original Keynesian rationale for these deficits provides a perfect cover for permanent deficit-living. They have made it clear that they will destroy any politician who tries to stop them from cost-shifting in this way.
 

Good luck ever changing that.