What is the "fiscal cliff"?

[acptulsa]

Find these responses confusing? There's a reason for that.

There are two 'fiscal cliffs'. One is the automatic stuff that will happen if the government fails to enact certain spending cuts and/or tax hikes that reduce the defecit spending to a certain preset point. If they don't, certain spending cuts and tax hikes will automatically happen due to a law that was passed a few years ago. Why they call it a 'cliff' we can only guess. My educated guess is that they're trying to obfuscate the other 'fiscal cliff'.

The other fiscal cliff has been mentioned by Ron Paul--he talked about it in his weekly Texas Straight Talk not long ago. This is the point of no return where the only way we can pay the debt by destroying the dollar, an event that won't be good for the economy. Or, if not precisely that, at any rate a worsening of the depression (can we really still call it a 'recession' after over four years?) due in no small part to the fact that the nation is drowning in both debt and excess liquidity and yet still in the middle of a credit crunch.

So, people who not only can see what's going on and are willing to actually warn us about it call it a fiscal cliff, and with good reason--the Fed is setting us up for a real fall. And, next thing you know, these automatic spending cuts/tax hikes are suddenly being referred to by the entire Mainstream Mafia--er, I mean Media--just all at the same time, all using the same term, all spontaneously, as the other 'fiscal cliff'. Hell of a coincidence, huh? They couldn't be trying to obfuscate the coming crash, could they?

Nah. Only conspiracy theorists talk that way....

[Zippyjuan]

Basically the budget is going to be balanced automatically, with tax increases and huge spending cuts. The debate is whether the government can get it together in time to stop it happening.

Won't be anything near enough to balance the budget but it does start to move in that direction. CBO estimates say it might if the mandated changes continued untouched for the next decade though. (Like THAT will happen!)

Broad info on the Cliff:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambro...-fiscal-cliff/

[VIDEODROME]

Everytime I hear about this it makes me think of Vizzini

[thoughtomator]

The fiscal cliff is a scare tactic that the most corrupt solons of both parties previously agreed to engage in, as a mechanism to rob you blind once again.

[seraphson]

Won't be anything near enough to balance the budget but it does start to move in that direction. CBO estimates say it might if the mandated changes continued untouched for the next decade though. (Like THAT will happen!)

Broad info on the Cliff:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambro...-fiscal-cliff/

I thought so. I thought I read something where if we wanted to realistically bring down the debt (disregarding how this motion will destroy/destroys our monetary system) that we would have to tax people at least 75% for the next 30 years or something ludicrous like that.

[Zippyjuan]

There are three significant parts of the US budget. Social Security. Medicare. and the Department of Defense. It is highly unpopular to cut any of these. If you take them off the table, you have to cut 100% of everything else (well, toss in Interest on the Debt since you can't cut that) and you will still have a budget deficit (it will nearly be gone based on 2009 budget figures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Un...federal_budget . Now if you don't cut anything and want to balance with income taxes alone, you have to double what they currently are. This is the difficult math behind trying to balance our budget and getting rid of the deficit (the debt will still exist and continue grow). A few billion in cuts and a few billion in taxes won't get you there. Cut the spending categories left by 50% and raise income taxes by 50% would just about get you balanced.

When you hear talks about a trillion dollars in cuts, they are talking about is often over 20 years which is only $50 billion a year or barely a tiny dent in the $1 trillion annual deficit.