Ok democrats need to cut spending and the GOP needs to raise taxes. Only problem is the Grover Norquist pledge. Will the GOP stay true to America or Grover? Will the democrats cut those entitlements for the good of the country or sacrifice it all for the poor?
With real GDP growth nudging 1.5% whatever compromise the D's and R's come up with will only have the effect of turning the fiscal cliff into a downward slope. Both tax increases and spending cuts will have the effect of slowing growth and making that slope steeper. The one and only solution to high unemployment, soaring deficits, etc. is raising the rate of growth of real GDP to 4% or higher.
Reagan inherited a stagnant economy and made bold moves to revive it that gave us the prosperity of the late 1980's and 1990's, but his policies carried with them risks both the Clinton and Bush43 administrations were slow to acknowledge and deal with. What we need today is a President who is bold enough to free up capital and inspire increased private investment in American industry and who is wise enough to manage to manage this reinvigorated economy better than Clinton or Bush43 did, perhaps Romney was that man, but what we have is a president whose every policy seems intended to make us more comfortable with a slowly failing economy rather than trying to turn it around.
Instead of proposing measures to that might help the economy recover, Obama proposes putting it on life support with more deficit funded "stimulus" spending. You can only see Obama's vision of hope and change as a good thing if the change you are hoping for is the decline of America.