The Fiscal Cliff

Mattea Kramer and Chris Hellman, CliffsNotes for Washington, The Nation:

As a start, relax. Don’t let the headlines get to you. There’s little reason for anyone to lose sleep over the much-hyped fiscal cliff. In fact, if you were choosing an image based on the coming fiscal dust-up, it probably wouldn’t be a cliff but an obstacle course—a series of federal spending cuts and tax increases all scheduled to take effect as 2013 begins. And it’s true that, if all those budget cuts and tax increases were to go into effect at the same time, an already weak recovery would probably sink into a double-dip recession. Read the whole story

Rachel Maddow doesn't like the term fiscal cliff. She talks about it as a mess, an artificial deadline. The clip below is from an early December show.

Scott Klinger at the Institute for Policy Studies published an article on December 19, 2012 that lays out why the proposals on the table would deepen inequality. Read the whole article