The short-term consequences are bad enough.
If Congress fails to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" by the end of the year, 6 million jobs will vanish over the next two years, driving the unemployment rate to nearly 12 percent, AWB President Don Brunell writes in his weekly column.
Some of the changes awaiting midnight Dec. 31 include the end of last year's temporary payroll tax cuts will end, resulting in a 2 percent tax increase for workers, the end of some usiness tax breaks, shifts in the alternative minimum tax will mean higher income taxes, the end of the Bush tax cuts from 2001-2003 and implementation of taxes to pay for Obamacare.
But the long-term consequences of America's debt addiction are even more troubling.
If you paid out one dollar every second, it would take 496,000 years to pay off our $16 trillion national debt, Brunell writes.
Our children and grandchildren will pay the consequences for our generation's irresponsibility
