Meet the fiscal cliff-divers, who think jumping off could be our best bet

By Suzy Khimm, WashPost

The very notion of a “fiscal cliff” suggests that the country is approaching a calamitous drop-off at the end of the year — and it would be tantamount to suicide to jump off.

But a contingent of policy wonks and Democrats insist that letting the Dec. 31 deadline come and go — thus triggering automatic tax increases and spending cuts — could produce the best outcome for the country. Once the tax hikes have kicked in, the reasoning goes, Republicans would be hard-pressed to roll them all back and would have to accept a deal on taming the deficit that contains more new tax revenue than GOP lawmakers want.

So some policy analysts and legislators say they are willing to go over the brink—and some are even gunning for Congress to do it.

Call them the cliff-divers.

“It will be much easier to negotiate a budget deal going over the cliff,” said William Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institute and former adviser to George H.W. Bush. “It seems to be the only way we can boost revenues.”

“The willingness to go over the cliff is a means to force a deal,” said Matt McAlvanah, a spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray, the fourth-ranking Democrat. In July, Murray said she would rather push the debt debate into next year rather than reach a deal “that throws middle class families under the bus.”

(More here.)