Article 1 Section 7

"All Bills for the raising of Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives;" 

Anyone know how the Senate can originate this morning's fiscal cliff bill?  Seem like they did, and the newsies haven't said anything about Article 1 Section 7.   

Obama wants a tax hike, Republicans want cuts

And, the Republicans keep asking Obama to "make some cuts".   Nice work if you can get it.  US government doesn't work that way.  Congress appropriates money by law to run the government.  The president signs the appropriation bill.  In principle he could veto a truly objecionable one, but somehow that never happens.  Appropriation bills are law,  the sequester is just a wish of Congress.  Appropriate, or better don't appropriate, is the name of the game. 
  In short, if the Republicans want spending cuts,  they have to pass them thru the House (which they control) and then dare the Democratic Senate to trashcan them.   The Senate doesn't want to be accused of driving the economy over the fiscal cliff.  For any reasonable bill, there will be a lot of pressure on the Senate to pass it rather than be left holding the blame. 
   Given a bill passed House and Senate, Obama will have to sign it, or take a lot of blame for all the things that are going to go wrong. 
  But it has to start with the House passing something.  Asking Obama to make spending cuts is a waste of airtime. The House has to do it.

Meet the Press

As usual I tuned in my Sunday pundits.  David Gregory had some democrats and republicans on Meet the Press, talking about the fiscal cliff.  He had Timmy "Turbotax" Geithner, US treasury secretary, claiming that his administration has planned trillions of dollar in spending cuts.  Then he had tax gadfly Grover Norquist on claiming that Obama wasn't offering a dime in cuts, but instead trillions in new spending.
   They can't both be right. One of them is lying.  The moderator, David Gregory, offered no help in sorting out who was the liar. Gregory isn't contributing to a useful debate so long as us viewers are saying, some one is lying, so nothing anyone says is worth listening to.  'Cause we cannot tell who is lying for sure, although we have our suspicions. .
   So what happens next?
1.  Congress fails to pass anything.  In which case taxes go up for everyone and some painful spending cuts take place real soon now.  This is called "going over the fiscal cliff".  Doing nothing is easier than doing something. 
2.  Congress does what Obama wants, passes a soak-the-rich tax hike. Most of us escape the tax hike.
3.  Congress does some serious spending cuts (Medicare reform) and gives Obama his tax hike in return for signing the spending cuts. 
   Place your bets.