The biggest barrier to resolving the fiscal cliff problem is Republicans not wanting to break their pledge to Grover Norquist and the Republican Right Wing, to not raise taxes, whatsoever.
The Democrats want to keep the tax rates down for middle class Americans, but want to raise tax rates on wealthy Americans. The Republicans do not want to raise taxes at all, because raising taxes would break their pledge to Grover Norquist, which they believe would be political suicide.
President Obama set the stage for a solution in his press conference today.
The President said that he would like to extend the Bush Era Tax Cuts for the Middle Class immediately, while a solution to the rest of the issues are ironed out at a later date. Proceeding in this manner could provide a sort of win-win situation for both parties. If the tax cuts are extended for the middle class including 97% of small business immediately, but the tax cuts for the wealthy are negotiated at a later date, at that time the decision could be made to not extend the tax cuts for the wealthy, which in essence, technically would not be a tax raise therefore would not constitute a violation of the Norquist pledge for Republicans. Republicans get to honor their pledge, save face with Norquist and avoid what they feel would be political suicide, and the Democrats get what they want also.
The bigger problem would still exist which is, our elected officials should not pledge allegiance to anyone but the American people, but that is a deeper issue that can be discussed at a later date.
For now, let’s just focus on not falling off a cliff and getting the American people back to work including me.
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