Washington Post Reports On The Failures Of The Fiscal Cliff Compromise

The liberal Washington Post reporting (not an op-ed) on the indisputable failures of the fiscal cliff deal:

"The agreement, which the Senate approved only hours after the government hit the limit on federal borrowing, fails to defuse the prospect of a...national default two months from now. Nor does the package do anything to address stubbornly high levels of unemployment, with 12 million Americans out of work. Instead, the deal could aggravate the problem...[b]y allowing the payroll tax cut to expire... And, finally, the deal is too modest to fundamentally tame the government’s soaring debt. The nation’s long-term finances remain in peril, with federal spending projected to rise dramatically as a wave of retiring baby boomers turns to the government for help in paying for ever-more-costly health care."

Of course this does not mean that Republicans need have opposed the legislation given the automatic alternative of the "fiscal cliff." But is worth nothing the wide gap between the two parties such that the agreement they do come to actually does not deal with a single one of the major issues. Tweet