What you should know about the fiscal cliff deal

Fiscal Cliff Deal is Classic Washington--nothing really solved--little pain, little gain:

Wonkbook: Everything you need to know about the fiscal cliff deal: ". . . ”There are two facts you should know about the ‘fiscal cliff’ deal: One, it won’t reduce the deficit by much. Two, it won’t avert the fiscal cliff. Whatever deal gets worked out this week will be very narrow in scope, simply delaying major parts of the fiscal cliff and doing little to reduce the deficit.” --Suzy Khimm in The Washington Post."

The only real solution is comprehensive tax reform and comprehensive entitlement reform and less spending on wasteful, unnecessary programs. Washington still thinks in terms of "tax breaks" and "giveaways." Reality check: but for the printing press, the federal government is broke and insolvent; someday soon we will no longer be the "least dirty shirt."  We need to start over--make the system fair, equitable, with lower, flatter rates, eliminate all personal deductions except charitable contributions (capped at a limit at 20% of taxable income), exempt first $20,000 of taxable income. I wrote about it here--

The Payroll Tax - the problem and part of the solution

Fiscal Cliff Solution

US needs comprehensive tax and entitlements reforms

The House needs to re-write the bill along the lines above and send it back to the Senate. There's no better time to start real reform with real solutions, instead of the usual Washington-disease thinking.

Tweet    Follow @johnmpoole