Lemmings — er, Republicans — on the march

Responsibility is missing as ‘fiscal cliff’ approaches

By Ruth Marcus, WashPost, Thursday, May 24, 4:25 PM

Falling off a cliff is never a good idea. Then again, neither is digging yourself deeper into a hole.

Those are the messages, contradictory but compelling, embedded in a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) about the fast-approaching “fiscal cliff.” The economy will confront the precipice at year’s end, on account of a confluence of tax cuts set to expire and spending cuts scheduled to kick in.

The combination would result in a dramatically slowed economy, with growth dwindling to 0.5 percent in 2013. Indeed, the CBO warned, in the first half of the year the economy would contract at an annual rate of 1.3 percent. In other words — and the CBO actually used this word — a recession.

The wrong lesson to draw from the report is that the spending cuts and tax increases should be postponed entirely. This approach would create equally, if not more, serious problems — only later.

The mushrooming debt would drain money from private investment, divert scarce government funds to rising interest payments and constrain the nation’s ability to respond to emergencies.

So what’s the sensible lawmaker to do?

(More here.)