National Security And The Fiscal Cliff

How The Fiscal Crisis Puts National Security At Risk -- Robert Kagan, Washington Post

In the interest of national security, and the preservation of the world order the United States has upheld and benefited from since World War II, Republicans and Democrats must make the necessary compromises and agree on a deal to address the nation’s fiscal crisis in both the near and the long term.

I am not an economist or a budget analyst, so I don’t presume to know exactly what a “grand bargain” should look like. It seems pretty obvious that a compromise will require both tax reform, including if necessary some tax increases, and entitlement reform, since those programs are the biggest driver of the fiscal crisis. What I do know, as a national security analyst, is that our continuing failure to address the crisis in a way that makes possible a return to stable economic growth has become a serious foreign policy problem.

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My Comment: I am not optimistic that a 'comprehensive' deal will be reached. What we will have will either be a delay in sequestration .... or .... and this is what I expect .... tax increases with promises of entitlement reform that (surprise surprise) will not happen. The debt ceiling will be raised again, and this fiscal crisis will revisit us again within two years. In the interim .... the economy will slip into a so-so recession, and the US defense budget will still be cut drastically .... sequestration or no sequestration.