A month ago James Kwak wrote The Supercommittee's Failure Was 2 Decades in the Making. "In short, if Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and Grover Norquist had a master plan to turn the United States into a low-tax, small-government society back in 1994, it's safe to say they are ahead of schedule. If they split the difference with Obama -- say, eliminating some tax expenditures to increase revenues and, in exchange, getting the 35 percent tax rate made permanent for the over-$250,000 set -- they could probably get some more entitlement cuts out of the current round of negotiations, like the lower cost-of-living adjustment they want for Social Security. And they would get credit from independent voters for compromising and combining tax increases with spending cuts."
"Which means there's still an outside chance that no one will agree to anything, December 31, 2012 will roll around, and all of the Bush tax cuts will expire. Which is the only thing that has any chance of increasing taxes on the rich and reducing the deficit."
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