Disaster Awaits Republicans at Bottom of Fiscal Cliff

Noam Scheiber says President Obama should let Republicans takes us over the fiscal cliff.

“They will see that they have been completely repudiated by the public in a way that even the election didn’t impress on them. It will, in other words, be as close as you get in politics to a total victory for one side. It will highlight the perils of following one’s base too slavishly, a lesson that will come in handy not just on future fiscal policy fights (there will in all likelihood still be a debt ceiling to raise next year), but, one can imagine, also on an issue like immigration. Which is to say, it’s only by forcing the GOP off the cliff that Obama will find the space he needs to govern.”

Andrew Sullivan: “Unless his strategy permanently embitters them and prompts them to use the debt ceiling – once again – as a cudgel.”