It's the Cuts, Stupid!

Alan Greenspan's Terrible Fiscal Cliff Comments

Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider catches Alan Greenspan seriously (and dangerously) mischaracterizing the fiscal cliff problem.

Greenspan [is] being completely misleading, talking about how the big challenges now are to find places to cut spending, rather than to reverse spending cuts that we've agreed to. He's framing the cliff 100% backwards, and so naturally the public and politicians are going to be totally confused about the issue at hand.

At some point we need to decide if taxes should be higher. And we can talk about whether we want to allocate fewer resources to the aged. But right now there's one task: Preventing austerity.

And Greenspan, and Simpson, and Bowles aren't helping.

To drive home his point, Weisenthal cites the below chart:

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

David Frum

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.