It’s not new, either. Thanks to the compromise cobbled together in
the lame-duck Congress after the 2010 midterms, everyone knew that the
big issues on tax rates got punted to after the 2012 elections. The
same thing was true of spending cuts in last summer’s debt-ceiling
fight. Both parties planned to run on their approach to solving the
problem, and then hashing it out after this election before time ran out. A new CBO report might put pressure on Congress to address it before the election:
Tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect in January
would suck $607 billion out of the economy next year, plunging the
nation at least briefly back into recession, the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.
Unless lawmakers act, the economy is likely to contract in the first
half of 2013 at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent, the CBO said, before
returning to 2.3 percent growth later in the year.
Read the whole thing, people. I like to slam Obama because of the narcissistic socialist Ivory Tower knucklehead that he is, but the fact is, both sides of the political aisle are at fault. This is a pretty good article on why Congress needs to stop punting the ball past the 2012 elections, and deal with the economy now, President Zero be damned.
