For all the grand talk of the tax compromise, the fact is that there has been no talk of budget cutting, and so the deficit will continue to grow. It would have been better had the agreement outlined exactly the number of billions to be cut and where to pay for the shortfalls.
By the same token, gas prices are heading for Christmas-season all-time highs, at a time when all talk of drilling in ANWR is apparently over, new exploration and off-shore drilling in parts of the Gulf are in suspension, and there seems to be no national urgency about translating recent large finds of natural gas into transportation fuel. As if Van Jones’s wind, solar, and “millions of new green jobs” hocus-pocus will see us through.
When Congress returns, we will still be facing climbing gas prices and deficits, with no plan how to deal with either one—other than the recognition that Obama’s back-to-back $1.4 trillion–plus budget deficits, and his disdain for domestically produced nuclear, natural-gas, oil, and coal power in favor of wind, solar, and batteries are a prescription for a national meltdown.