David Brooks Bemoans the Fact that We Didn't Have the Fiscal Cliff a Year Ago

He didn't use exactly those words, but that is one implication of his column on Paul Ryan's decision to not support the Bowles-Simpson deficit plan when he was a member of the deficit commission back in 2010. (Brooks attributes Ryan's action to his hope for a larger scale overhaul of Medicare. More cynical types might attribute it to his adherence to the Republican dogma of never supporting tax increases.)

Anyhow, fans of the Bowles-Simpson report might recall that it would have first put bud...