Friday’s Big Idea
Today's Big Idea: The Fiscal Cliff
Whoever invented the term "fiscal cliff" should start collecting royalty checks, suggested David Rubenstein at this year's Nantucket Project, a festival of ideas on Nantucket, Massachusetts. After all, the fiscal cliff is all anyone seems to be talking about.
It's an apt metaphor. It is a scary thing, after all, to fall off a cliff, and that's exactly what the Congressional Budget Office has said will happen to the U.S. economy in 2013 if no compromise is reached in Washington to help absorb what would be a $720 billion fiscal shock in the form of tax increases and spending cuts.
Rubenstein was part of a panel of high profile financial leaders who all see a compromise on the horizon. "Even Congress can figure out how to kick the can," said Larry Summers.
