Adam Davidson: What we learned from teetering on the fiscal cliff

It's the end of 2012, and the US political system is tied in knots over next year's "fiscal cliff" -- a budget impasse that can only be solved with bipartisan agreement. (And the world is watching.) Adam Davidson, cohost of "Planet Money," shares surprising data that shows how it might just be solved.

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[BennoTheDutch]

Agreed. The biggest problem is not that foodstamps cost money, the biggest problem is bailing out the rich. It's easy to say for Warren Buffet that he wants higher taxes on the rich: it will cost him a few million more whereas he already received billions from the government. As far as he's concerned, he's making profit by shifting the attention to taxing.

[dargonsheinto]

One thing i did see that was misleading was the graph on the money income vs money spending. Even when our country had a surplus we still had a large debt that was not being paid off with that surplus.

[AWSVids]

What we had confirmed from the "fiscal cliff" is that the rich don't want their tax rate going up and will use whatever scare tactics they can to convince people it's a bad idea. We didn't learn anything because we already knew this.
That being said, the sentiments that Adam expresses here are good. Taking everything with a grain of salt and using discretion tends to make one pretty centrist, and really, that is the best practice in these polarizing times.

[StephenDeagle]

This is basically the argument for Mario Monti. I for one am not inclined towards a new state of affairs in which political problems are not perceived as ideological but merely a matter of crunching the numbers to best provide the desired outcome rather than questioning what the desired outcome should be.

[Falcrist]

The numbers he showed demonstrate the support for a specific tweak. What is being implied is that there are other tweaks that have support from a different subset of the American people, but that overall the vast majority of Americans want some kind of change.

[ShadeWMD]

Yup. It's like saying a boat with a hole in it, that happens to be afloat right now, will always float. It's structurally unsound and physics determines that the boat will eventually sink, regardless of the dry people on it high-fiving each other.

[Gyozomroka]

I think this is possibly the most important political message of our time

[isaacpape]

Wow ten years later and we are still in the same place. Except even worse.

[frunchzz]

How is he saying that the country is not divided on tweaking social security when the numbers he provided show that they're roughly 50% for and 50% against?

[bmehanni]

He was just saying that the divide wasn't partisan. It doesn't matter what political party you belong to; there is a 50% chance that you will support tweaking social security.

[DesertGardenLV]

So nice of those 7 people to show up and clap for this guy at the begining

[NedTheDread]

Totally agree with ya, the whole way the USA is doing things needs to change. The system is flawed, it won't get better until you redesign it.

[KyCuJe]

The reason why people seem more "open" to compromise on very specific issues, as opposed to more broad, vague issues, from my experience, is due to their ignorance. This is more prevalent regarding economic policy, as the vast majority of people are, understandably, ignorant of economics. HS mandatory econ courses are a complete joke, and few entertain further study into it. When grilled with specifics, they lack the knowledge to make any specific claims and weaken their argument in defense.

[ItachiUchiha]

We don't need a huge army. The days of infantry fighting are starting to disappear. We don't need any wars, but the government likes starting them. Perhaps we should completely remove the politicians that are dead-set on war. Then, the military would slowly decrease its spending & other countries might rethink their views on the US. It would lead to more prosperity.

[WilhelmGlaserGallion]

2:00 bottom right. I'm crying in the corner, too

[misterjosh]

I think that unprecedented policy changes are usually a bad thing. The laws passed are usually more closely aligned with monied special interests than they are with the needs of the average citizen.

[HigherPlanes]

Oh baby Jesus, I'm glad I learned about the fiscal cliff before the end of the world, Santa would be so thrilled.

[misterjosh]

Jobs are not a zero sum game. The death or retirement of a worker does not automatically open up a slot for another worker.

[ErnestOfGaia]

Thanks for the info 42kang, he points out some interesting things though, 1. the lack of actual representation of the people and how this contributes to great dysfunction. 2. he points out that there are 2 economic systems and that they are both capitalist in nature and that neither of them work. Perhaps we should be thinking about the data & non- capitalist solutions? Capitalism has brought us crisis after crisis and uses these crisis to extract wealth from the 99%. Let's represent ourselves

[bbolton]

The higher the taxes, the less money that actually goes to the treasury. The government is too big. period. It would be one thing if the people actually believed in the systems they were paying into all their lives. There is no "fix" for the economy but to STOP SPENDING. What do regular people do when they don't have any money? They stop spending it. Put all this social nonsense aside and get it done. We don't need the government in our pockets more than they already are.