The fiscal cliff and our future

Here we are, Americans, peering over the edge of the much-talked about fiscal cliff.

The fiscal cliff, simplified, is a combination of large tax increases and spending: $500 billion in tax increases taking effect early next year, coupled with $109 billion in spending reductions, the first installment toward $1.2 trillion in cuts over two years.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this one-two punch might raise U.S. unemployment to 9 percent or higher and push the country back into a recession.

We have reached the brink of this economic abyss, of course, because Congress tried and failed last year to reach a deal to reduce massive and growing budget deficits. That failure led to the Jan. 1, 2013, date of doom for automatic spending cuts and tax increases.

Now Congress and the administration have another chance to avoid fiscal peril in the dwindling days of this year.

Currently we have Democrats demanding to raise revenue by boosting tax rates on the nation’s highest earners and Republicans insisting on eliminating deductions and other tax breaks.

Neither of those opening bids may be enough: The revenue solution has to be all-encompassing; the spending solution needs to be as well.

Brinksmanship is very much in evidence in the antagonistic and partisan tug of war begin waged in Washington: Each party is threatening to drag the other over the fiscal cliff and then blame the other guys for the chaos that would follow.

The bottom line behind this debate is that we have much more government than we can afford.

The solution to a layman may seem simple: You need to raise revenue and you need to cut spending. And both have to be done in amounts of trillions of dollars.

But when you’re dealing with a gargantuan federal budget with its many tentacles, in addition to bitter party rivalries, it’s not so simple any more.

Factors that are less than helpful in escaping this quagmire include the unyielding naysayers on both ends of the political spectrum — those held in thrall by either the no-tax-pledge Neanderthals or the government-is-great ivory-tower idealists.

Their entrenched positions will not keep us from the cliff and it would be wise for leaders in both our executive and legislative branches to tune them out.

It’s entirely possible that the political posturing emanating from Washington may be more show than substance, that, as deficit commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles said, “If they got to agreement — the way Washington is — too quickly, their own side would just kill them because they wouldn’t think they had negotiated hard enough.”

Let’s hope our esteemed negotiators are further along than they indicate.

They have to do something — for us and for our children — and not wait until the last minute to do it. They must come up with a comprehensive game plan and not keep employing the same delaying-the-inevitable tactics that have characterized years of dithering.