Maybe America won’t go over the “fiscal cliff” after all.
President Obama yesterday urged Congress to pass a middle-class tax cut for those making under $250,000 and adopt yet another unemployment-benefit extension while punting everything else — including mandatory spending cuts — until next year.
The offer came one day after Speaker John Boehner was forced to yank his own tax bill from the House floor; he was unable to get enough Republicans to support a plan to keep Bush-era tax cuts in effect for Americans making less than $1 million.
Recalcitrant House conservatives believed such an action — without serious spending cuts on the table — was too high a price to pay.
And it’s hard to disagree with that.
Now the fiscal-cliff onus is back on the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — neither of whom is noted for good-faith bargaining.
Reid has offered no serious plan — which reflects his failure even to pass a budget in the Senate in more than three years.
All of this adds to the drama, of course.
But it actually changes very little of the fiscal-cliff dynamics: All Bush tax cuts expire on Dec. 31. The next day, everyone’s taxes go up and forced spending cuts — particularly on the military — will be imposed.
The combination — a huge tax hike and across-the-board spending cuts — could crater the already fragile economy.
All the more reason to be hopeful.
Nothing important ever gets done in DC until the very last minute — and there’s no reason to expect this to be any different.
There will, inevitably, be a tax increase.
But House Republicans this week stood on principle and refused to pour what they see as bitter poison down their own throat — or the country’s.
President Obama now owns the outlines of a tax hike.
Let’s see what he does with it.