Congress finally executed a last minute legislative response to the impending tax increases and spending cuts that were scheduled to become law Jan. 1, 2013. It is too soon to evaluate this stopgap measure since legislators only received the final draft of over 100 pages a few minutes prior to the actual vote. This will become the second significant piece of legislation affecting every American that has been passed prior to a full reading in both chambers of Congress. This type of last second crisis management has its roots in the inability of Congress to enact a budget in what will now be almost 4 years. Common sense says that without a budget, the hard decisions will always be forestalled until public pressure causes legislators to do whatever it takes to escape economic disaster.
The problem with legislating without a budget is that decisions are made in the heat of the moment without significant public discourse. The next crisis looming is the ability to raise the debt ceiling that will be required in the first quarter of 2013 to sustain current government spending. Again, this discussion will occur as a last ditch effort to prevent a shut-down of massive segments of the US infrastructure. Although economists have diverse opinions on potential outcomes of continued deficit spending, human nature dictates that without taking on the difficult task of determining how much government is enough, and how much is too much, the spending appetite of the U.S. will continue to grow unabated.
