http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20243509Quote:
So the people have spoken, and they have voted for the very system that stopped anything happening for the last two years. It is a three-legged race with the runners struggling to go their own sweet way, while bound together by heavy chains.
There will be a lot of talk of the fiscal cliff - the mutually agreed suicide pact that was meant to concentrate minds on agreement.
Unless they do, the Democrats will be hit by spending cuts they don't want and the Republicans saddled with tax rises plus defence cuts that are abhorrent to them. Still chained on the edge, they seem determined to jump off the cliff, wrapped in an ugly embrace.
But the fiscal cliff is just one example of where the president may find it difficult to move forward. It's not easy to achieve reform of the tax code, spending on infrastructure, and progress on green energy.
And his partners may be locked in a struggle of their own. For Republicans, defeat may be followed by a healthy debate. Or it may be political civil war.
The implied assumptions in Mardell's column are interesting. Specifically, the assumptions that green energy is the only way forward, that taxes have to go up, and that the GOP can only meet with further failure if they continue with their ideological views.
