I haven’t written about the “fiscal cliff” fiasco because I think the whole thing is stupid.  Not only does it show that Congress cannot function, but the press’s coverage of it has been awful.  They treat the “cliff”–stupid name, by the way–like it’s some kind of unstoppable evil that unexpectedly appeared before us, when in fact it is just the already-known, logical results of acts of Congress.

You may ask: why did Congress pass acts that include provisions so terrible the mere prospect of them going into effect has set everyone into a panic?  I don’t know.  I’m no legal or legislative expert, but I think this all suggests a lack of foresight on the part of our elected officials. But I haven’t seen a lot of press covering that aspect of the story.  They seem mostly focused on the endless fighting between the parties preventing them from fixing the problem–which is certainly worth covering in its own right–but I think people also ought to consider just how this all came about in the first place.