The headline above is how Variety, the Hollywood news magazine that uses its own insider lingo — what it calls “slanguage” — might describe what’s currently happening with the fiscal cliff.
The translation from slanguage to Washingtonese is that some on Capitol Hill and elsewhere are upset that the fiscal cliff discussions still seem to be stuck where they were a week or more ago. But, like most translations, this one doesn’t really reflect the full sense of a fiscal cliff situation that so far has provided more entertainment than policy changes. Hence, at least for this week, federal budget slanguage is definitely called for.
The headline is most appropriate as you watch Congress and the White House feign anger that the fiscal cliff discussions are taking so long, going down to the last minute and are so contentious. As I said in last week’s column, is it really possible that anyone who has watched any of the previous episodes of “As the Budget Turns” over the past two years could be even slightly miffed that the fight — or tiff — over the fiscal cliff is not any diff . . . erent from what’s come before? After all, the fight to the death that is currently under way is what was, or should have been, expected.
Many of those involved in the fiscal cliff seem to be using the standard comedy writers’ technique of having the characters talking to each other without anyone hearing what anyone else is saying. For example, there has been a great deal of talk about the need for a big deficit reduction deal at the same time others effectively are suggesting that a small agreement that does just enough to allow everyone to feel good about canceling the cliff’s tax increases and spending cuts is the only thing possible.
Enacting a grand bargain on the budget during the lame-duck session of Congress was always the longest of long shots. There simply was never going to be enough time to get the two key elements of a big deal — tax and entitlement reform — through the extreme legislative and political gantlets they were going to face. It would have been difficult to put a grand bargain in place even if there had been a bipartisan consensus when the lame duck began about what should be done. On the contrary, there wasn’t even the whisper of a tacit agreement, let alone a pact of any kind.
With four of the six weeks between the start of the lame duck and the fiscal cliff now gone, the big budget deal some are still talking about as it if were a real option is even less likely than when Congress reconvened Nov. 13. That’s why, at this point, any talk about a grand bargain has to be considered secondary to the main fiscal cliff plot. Like red-herring clues, all that’s doing is distracting the audience’s attention away from the primary story.
Even if President Barack Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, could agree on something big, there’s little to no chance that the politics of the budget, the legislative technicalities involved with multiple big tax and spending changes and the needed buy-in from voters can be dealt with before the fiscal cliff policies go into effect starting Jan. 1. Therefore, if there’s any fiscal cliff agreement at all, it’s most likely to be something much, much smaller than a grand bargain.
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
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