What Would Churchill Say About The Fiscal Cliff?

Here's what I said about Winston Churchill and the fiscal cliff in a just-published op-ed in the Financial Times. Rights and wrongs of the US fiscal cliffBy Stan CollenderWinston Churchill’s oft-quoted observation about America – always doing the right thing but only after it exhausts all the other options – is being tested as it deals with what US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke in February labelled the “fiscal cliff”.Mr Bernanke coined that phrase to warn policy makers about the $600bn or so of tax increases and spending cuts that will go into effect on January 1 and 2 unless the US Congress and President Barack Obama enact legislation to stop them from happening. He was right to worry. The Congressional Budget Office and a number of Wall Street companies are projecting that in 2013 the US economy will fall back into recession and unemployment will rise above 9 per...