Deal/No Deal

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (December 31, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

This is being written at 4:35 PM PST on Monday.  I'm not going to waste New Year's Eve tracking the yahoos in DC and any deals they might make before Midnight to avoid the fiscal cliff.  At this point, the tentative agreement between the White House and Senate Minority Leader McConnell has not yet been voted on.  Even if it were voted on and passed, the House leadership has already announced that it will not hold a vote on the bill before Midnight.  That means we go over the cliff. 

BFD.

Now, it's possible that all of this is simply posturing and that a bill will sail through both houses tonight.  If that is the case, I will update the post and apologize for being a slacker tomorrow.  Tonight I intend to spend curled up with my cat, my kindle, and the vaporizer which is finally dispelling the chest congestion which has bedeviled me all week.  At midnight, when all the fireworks go off in the neighborhood, and there will be plenty, I will toast the new year with hot apple cider.  And then I will go back to sleep.

Assuming, however, that the House has no intention of passing any kind of bill, I do have a few suggestions for the White House and the Democrats in Congress.  Come January 1, 2013, it's a new ball game.  It's time to tell the Republicans that all previous negotiations are null and void.  Time to start from scratch.  Those Bush tax cuts are over.  That Pentagon budget is sliced.  You want a deal, start talking.

And, no, we're not cutting Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.  And, yes, we are extending Unemployment Insurance for another year.  So, what should we be talking about?

Of course, that's not the way the White House and the DLC Dems negotiate, and that's a rotten shame.

Other than that, Happy New Year everyone!