OTHERS SAY

When is Cliffmas?

— “We know precious little about what this deal is-this is negotiated in private behind closed doors, they leak one or two little elements and they expect everyone else to comment intelligently on it when we don’t know anything about it.”

-U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah As a rule we don’t predict much beyond imminent humiliation for devotees of Mayan calendars. We’re especially guarded when the topic is official Washington, city of mirrors, where the trajectory of negotiations often is elusive.

But as Americans approach January 1st federal tax increases and across-theboard spending cuts, hints from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue suggest that (a) Congress and President Barack Obama will reach a menacingly small bargain on spending and revenue and (b) then heroically claim to have rescued America.

Believe it only when you see hard numbers that honest brokers outside the government have authenticated.

We understand the politicians’ urge to avoid what Beltway wags call “Cliffmas,” a Christmas week-leading toward a fateful January 1st-with no agreement. If that happens, they’ll all look foolish.

But as you evaluate any agreement that’s announced, keep this paramount point, well, paramount:

Distrust any deal that doesn’t deliver new reductions in spending growth, and new revenue, of at least $4 trillion over 10 years. The agreement that appears to be emerging instead would fall between $2 trillion and $3 trillion. Notthat both sides wouldn’t want to inflate those numbers. So if anybody tries to sell you on a deal that gets to $4 trillion by counting the $1 trillion in savings that was legislated in 2011, or an $800 billion “peace dividend” of reductions from yesteryear’s level of spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, don’t believe it.

That sort of gimmickry would confirm that President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and their respective parties are trying only to avoid a cliff-not save America from the even more menacing mountain.

Focus, then, not on the frothy politics and posturing of these final Cliffmas days, but on our government’s need to stop borrowing $3 million every minute of every day. As this debate lengthens, though, we’re hearing more and more about “the need to cut a deal,” less and less about “the need to lower our debt.”

Our hope since last spring, though, was that both sides would use the fiscal cliff debate to defend larger principles: that America’s economic future, not the politicians’ electoral futures, is what matters most. America might survive, but cannot build a new era of stronggrowth, if its lawmakers pretend they can continue to dodge, and delay.

President Obama, Speaker Boehner: If you settle on a deal that only avoids the fiscal cliff, that’s fine as far as the short distance it goes. If you try to convince us that a deal betraying puny ambitions nevertheless can level Debt Mountain, we’ll all know better.

If you cut a small deal and admit that once again you’ve stalled the unpopular decisions until some allegedly decisive tomorrow . . . nah, you wouldn’t do that. Would you?

Editorial, Pages 12 on 12/26/2012

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