In a little more than three weeks we could be headed, as a nation, off a fiscal cliff that would see higher taxes and perhaps even higher unemployment, along with cuts to a host of federal agencies.
And yet a stalemate continues between House Republicans and the White House over just how to proceed with avoiding that cliff.
Raise taxes on the wealthy? Reduce deductions? Cut entitlement programs?
Both sides say the other won’t give. In the meantime, they are all playing chicken with our economic future.
Some political experts will tell us this is our fault as voters: We voted back in the very people who didn’t agree and caused gridlock to start with.
Well, that may be so, but the fact is we elected these people to figure out some kind of solution, and they need to work it out.
The election is over. There’s no need to posture for political purposes anymore — unless peopel are already looking ahead to the midterms and the next presidential election.
We need a compromise on this issue. We’re going to have to raise taxes. We’re going to have to make some cuts in programs.
But in the end, we will have avoided the kind of fiscal disaster that can only come when the people we elected forget that they should be statesmen and not politicians.
If that fails, perhaps we can just drive Washington off a cliff instead of the economy.