So-Called Fiscal Cliff Is Baloney; Our Economy Can Recover if Obama Focuses on What We Really Need: Jobs!

By Marshall Auerback, AlterNet
Posted on July 15, 2012, Printed on July 21, 2012

Here's something you're unlikely to hear when you turn on the TV. Deficits are not the problem in our economy. And tax cuts for those making less than $250,000 a year are not the solution. What America really needs is a serious national program to put people back to work. That's the key to saving the economy. So why don't we ever hear this in pundit-land?

The pundits are too busy talking about dreaded “fiscal cliff." At the end of 2012, they warn, many temporary but significant tax cuts are going to expire. The resultant increase in taxes means consumers will have less to spend which in turn will cause the economy to suffer.

Of course, both the president and Congress could easily extend these cuts. But there's a widespread -- and misguided -- fear that doing so will damage the country’s long-term fiscal health by failing to deal with imaginary dangers of what they call a “fiscally unsustainable” path. Both branches of government sadly embrace this misguided paradigm, and the arguments relating to the extension of the tax cuts (i.e. whether it should be for everybody, as the Republicans argue, or simply for those Americans making under $250,000 a year, as President Obama recently suggested).