‘Lunatic’ Fiscal Cliff Strategy
Charles Konigsberg, policy chief of NEMA, was the director of the Domenici-Rivlin Bipartisan Debt Reduction Task Force and served as assistant budget director in the Clinton White House. G. William Hoagland, vice president of public policy at CIGNA, was Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee for nearly 20 years.
Congress and the White House face a clear choice on the “fiscal cliff.”
They can go over it and push the economy into recession in 2013, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the International Monetary Fund have projected.
Or they can avoid it. If they do, CBO projects GDP growth of 4.4% and more than 2 million new jobs in 2013.
Unfortunately, the high-stakes game of political chicken currently under way in Congress is increasingly viewed as “good strategy.”
It is a lunatic strategy.