Washington’s Cliff Notes: How to Get Yourself to the Edge of the Fiscal Abyss and Not Jump

tomdispatch.com — They don’t call it the "cliff” for nothing.  It’s the fiscal spot where a nation’s representatives can gather and cry doom.  It’s the place -- if Washington is to be believed -- where, with a single leap into the Abyss of Sequestration, those representatives can end it all for the rest of us.  In the wake of President Obama’s electoral victory, that cliff (if you’ll excuse a mixed metaphor or two) is about to step front and center. The only problem: the odds are no one will leap, and remarkably little of note will actually happen.  But since the headlines are about to scream “crisis,” what you need to understand American politics in the coming weeks of the lame-duck Congress is a little guide to reality, some Cliff Notes for Washington. As a start, relax.  Don’t let the headlines get to you.  There’s little reason for anyone to lose sleep over the much-hyped fiscal cliff.

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