rickackerman.com / By Rick Ackerman / January 2, 2013
In the wickedly funny Tim Burton film Mars Attacks! there’s a scene where all 534 members of Congress are vaporized by aliens with ray guns. Oh, how we wish! Alas, just when we need them most, there is nary a trigger-happy Martian around. Instead, we have only the tragicomic spectacle of political thumb-wrestling on such a grotesque scale that even optimists will have been sapped of hope that the Republic can somehow survive the follies and depredations of its ruling class. The fact that the negotiations have continued into 2013 after a supposed compromise was reached on New Year’s Eve hints of further perils that lie ahead for Americans in the new year. For, nowhere in any compromise about to be struck is there a serious word about spending cuts. The main focus of the talks is the extent of tax increases that will in any case hit most workers, and hard. “In effect,” noted the Wall Street Journal, “Congress has delayed the fiscal cliff by erecting a new and potentially more dangerous one.”
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