You can tell when Congress and the President have tough choices to make. That’s when they trot out the euphemisms—all aimed at making what they are about to do sound as benign as possible.  Case in point: the impending fiscal cliff. If you listened to President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner’s radio addresses last Saturday, [...]

In some parallel universe, Congress and President Obama would respond to the stock market tumble, the S&P ratings downgrade, and growing public disgust at their toxic inaction on fiscal policy in a simple way: They’d agree on the broad deficit reduction plan they could not settle on last month. The plan would include some short-term [...]