Somebody.... 

...finally figured this out.

Republicans are stuck betwixt a rock and a hard spot with this Fiscal Cliff matter.  Doing nothing, which I support, will lead to another scenario down the road.  This guy figured it out.

If Obama is serious about this option -- and we can't know for certain until it actually happens, but it certainly looks like he is ready to do that rather than accept a bad deal that doesn't hike tax rates on the wealthy -- it is significant. As I noted here on Friday, that is key to preserving the basic imbalance of the current situation -- an imbalance that leaves Republicans with the weaker hand.
That's because the current situation is unique. If we do nothing and all the Bush tax cuts expire, Dems can come back and move to pass just the middle class tax cuts, challenging Republicans to vote against renewing them after they have expired. That would be different from what happened in 2010, when Dems held a similar vote and Republicans voted against it, because at that point, the option remained of continuing them all before they expired at the end of 2010 (which is what actually happened). That won't be the case this time: All of them will have expired. Republicans will be challenged to vote against middle class tax cuts in isolation, simply because the plan on the table does not cut taxes on the rich -- after Obama won an election vowing to raise the taxes of wealthy people.

Thus, if you want to walk the walk now, you better be willing to keep strutting when the next scenario unfolds.  By history, the current Republican leadership does not have the cojones to do either.

As an aside, remember when this whole Fiscal Cliff scenario was dreamed up several years ago?  It was the Democrats that proposed it as a carrot for the Republicans to go a along with the debt ceiling hike.  Here's a thought....maybe this was the plan?

Republicans! You will be amazed at their ability to shoot themselves in both feet with one bullet.....

Enjoy the decline!