Mr Obama’s very own Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicates a double-digit recession is in store for early 2013 if the “Bush Tax Cuts” are allowed to expire. From the WashingtonTimes.com:

Reducing or eliminating the fiscal restraint would boost economic growth in 2013, but that adopting such a policy without imposing comparable restraint in future years would have substantial economic costs over the longer run,” CBO said in its analysis.

Further:

Republicans remain adamant that the lower income- and investment-tax rates passed in 2001 and 2003 under President Bush, and extended in 2010 under President Obama, must be extended again.

“No economy can sustain such a hit without being hurled into recession,” said Sen Orrin G. Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax policy.

One thing both sides say they agree on, however, is the need to act now.

Last week, House Speaker John A. Boehner kicked off the conversation, drawing a line in the sand in saying that he won’t allow another increase in the federal government’s debt ceiling unless it’s matched dollar-for-dollar with future spending cuts — just as the 2011 debt deal was.

In truth, however, this may all be nothing but “whistling past the graveyard” because my own personal eye is on two countries: Greece and Spain.

If Greece kicks out the Euro and goes back to the drachma, and if Spain does likewise (back to the peseta), I suspect there will be even greater runs on Greek and Spanish banks. That will yield a major crisis for those two countries –Greece first.

And I, of course, always try to do what I call the “logical extension.”

Might not panic in Europe translate to a “run” on American banks as well?

I can’t help but wonder.

And still, the American public gushes over American Idol and the newest brain-dead entries on Twitter and Facebook.

Also, the Fornicalia legislature and Supreme Court anguished over how to micromanage lunches for employees.

Lunches. Really. I’m not kidding. Lunches.

BZ