Will The Fiscal Cliff Can Get Kicked?

President Obama is flying back to DC today to continue work on the fiscal cliff, but my understanding of the calendar is that we're basically out of time already. To enact a big tax and spending bill, you'd first need agreement amongst the principals. Then aides would have to write it up in more precise legal language, and it'd have to be scored and sold to key members of congress. That's really a "deal before Christmas if you want to be finished by the New Year" scenario and we're not there. But there's still valuable work to be done. For one thing, Democrats and Republicans can talk about what bills they might like to pass in January once we're using the new baseline. But there's also the option of kicking the can. Recall that the cliff is an entirely political crisis. There's zero pressure from bond markets or inflation expectations for a deficit reduction deal. It'd be tota...