It seems Lawrence O'Donnell isn't the only one who believes the Democrats might have to take the country over the so-called "fiscal cliff" to manage to get any cooperation from Republicans in actually trying to govern the country. Here's Paul Krugman's response on this week's Fareed Zakaria GPS:
ZAKARIA: Final issue, fiscal cliff. Do you -- I assume you think it would be a bad thing, a drag on the GDP.
ROGOFF: Yeah, yeah.
ZAKARIA: Do you think it's likely to happen?
ROGOFF: No, but I'm not sure because it's so divisive, and one side or the other may see a gain. I have no idea what's going to come out of it. I think the clear thing is we don't know which direction they're going to turn if they don't go off the cliff. Are they going to get higher taxes, lower government spending, some combination. I have no idea. And that uncertainty weighs very heavily on businesses right now.
KRUGMAN: Well, I mean, it's a game of chicken. And I actually think if Obama's re-elected, I think that there's a quite good chance that for a month or two we actually will go off the cliff, which doesn't do that much harm. It's brief, because I think Obama if he is re-elected, he has to say government by blackmail, it's not an acceptable way to run this country. And so, I'm going to call you guys bluff and let the people who are paying for your campaigns come running and demanding that you make a compromise with me. So I actually -- I would put, you know, pretty substantial odds that we will in fact, at least temporarily, see those rates go up. And then -- then it's a different game.
