"The whole point of fiscal-cliff scare-mongering is to deprive Obama and the Democrats of the leverage they’ll abruptly gain on January 1st, which will enable them to strike a much better deal than Republicans and their allies in the deficit-industrial-complex want to give them"

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The New Republic
Calling B.S. on the Next Big 'Fiscal Cliff' Bluff
By Noam Scheiber
November 20, 2012


Calling B.S. on the Next Big 'Fiscal Cliff' Bluff


Some excerpts :

In the end, the notion that conservative Democrats (i.e., Democrats who want smaller tax increases and bigger entitlement cuts) must be listened to is nothing more than a bluff, one made with the same goal in mind as the other major bluff at work here—the idea that going over the fiscal cliff would instantly wreak disaster on the economy.

As Jon Chait has explained, the whole point of such fiscal-cliff scare-mongering is to deprive Obama and the Democrats of the leverage they’ll abruptly gain on January 1st, which will enable them to strike a much better deal than Republicans and their allies in the deficit-industrial-complex want to give them.

Likewise, the whole point of arguing that Democratic moderates must be reckoned with is to frighten liberals into making concessions no sane person with their bargaining power would agree to.

Of course, I’m not surprised that red-state Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor, who are quoted in the piece, would push this “heed the moderates” line. Or deficit-hawk groups like Third Way (also quoted). I am, however, a little surprised that Politico has run with this story so credulously.

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