I'm not sure what you mean by saying it's a crock, or hogwash, or a ploy. I think it does make sense to view it as a ploy to gut Social Security and Medicare. That's Bill Black's view--Obama on Social Security is like Nixon in China: Obama can make changes to so-called "entitlement" programs that people would howl about if Republicans tried to do the same thing. Obama will make small changes that will allow the full unraveling of the programs later.
But in another sense, the "fiscal cliff" is not a crock, in that if the tax increases and spending cuts happen, they could do harm to the economy, and undermine what recovery there is.
Maybe what you are getting at is that even though the cuts and tax increases could raise havoc, the alarmism about it is misleading, because what we have is a political impasse, not a real economic impasse. Congress could perfectly well find good alternatives to the automatic cuts and across-the-board tax increases that would otherwise happen--raise taxes on the wealthy, cut military spending massively, and even increase the kind of domestic spending that creates more jobs--without doing a thing about so-called "entitlement" spending. That's what Heidi Garrett-Peltier argues in her comment in the current issue of D&S: http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2012/0912garrett-peltier.html.
> Message: 11
> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:05:30 -0800
> From: "Curtis Vaughan" <ckirov at riseup.net>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] "Fiscal Cliff"
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Message-ID:
> <c370a6c3ae8129e948892beaa9ce2f12.squirrel at fulvetta.riseup.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8
>
> I was going to write to Doug, but then I realized why not ask the whole
> LBO list.
>
> I've been rather skeptical about this whole "fiscal cliff" talk in the
> press. All the more so anything my local Seattle Times deems critical is
> probably not. In fact it's quite interesting that the words are always put
> in quotes. As if to say, "the so-called 'fiscal cliff'."
>
> Over the past week I recall listening to one person express why he
> believed it a crock, and then there was an article I read, in which
> another chap expressed skepticism over the reality of any fiscal cliff.
>
> Unfortunately, I haven't seen and can't seem to find an article to the
> affect that yeh, this is in fact all hogwash or a ploy, but which analyses
> the reasons why it is. Anyone seen such an article that is worthy of
> attention?
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
> --
--
Chris Sturr
Co-editor, *Dollars & Sense*
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