The fiscal cliff "Deal" in my opinion will prove to be a huge strategic blunder in the long term for progressives, because we fell victim to a shell game the GOP was playing. If we don't understand what really happened in this Deal, we will continue to lose major battles against them and ultimately the New Deal will be in jeopardy.
I just wrote a diary here that explains that in order to evaluate the fiscal Deal, you have to understand the long term strategy of the GOP is to lower revenue to force cuts to entitlement programs.
During the negotiation of this Deal, all of the focus was on the threshold for the cuts, i.e., whether the tax rates would go up at $250k or $400k or $1 million. As well as other short term measures like unemployment extensions, etc. In reality, thre tax increase threshold was actually the least important item in the negotiation. I think many (not all) Republicans realized this and were just making a lot of noise about the threshold for show.
What was the most important item in the negotation that nobody ever discussed? Whether the reduced tax rates for people below the threshold (whatever it was) would ever expire. I could be wrong, but I never heard any discussion of that issue.
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