Don’t Drink the Inside-the- Beltway Fiscal-Cliff Kool-Aid

◼ Given the alternatives that are being bandied about in Washington, there can be no doubt that, from a policy perspective, going over the fiscal cliff is the far superior option. - Avik Roy/National Review

Temporary extensions of tax cuts don’t do much for the economy; temporary extension of unemployment benefits retards job-seeking; and the whole grab-bag of accounting gimmicks allows Congress to avoid owning up to the true scale of the budget deficit, a budget deficit that will get cut in half if we go over the cliff.

The most common conservative rejoinder to these arguments is political: that Republicans will be blamed if we go over the cliff, and that will cost them in the next election. I don’t agree with that argument, as I’ve written previously, for two reasons: (1) the next election is as far away as an election can be; (2) Republicans will never be able to build a political case for less spending if most Americans are insulated from the cost of that spending.

I was glad to see Marc Thiessen make a very similar argument today in the Washington Post. Going over the fiscal cliff, Marc writes, is “a development conservatives should welcome.” ... More at the link.