Wow, the fiscal cliff sounds great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_fiscal_cliff Basically both parties hate it as it greatly reduces government programs and raises taxes.
I am not too down on the raising taxes, it is great to see a real reduction in government actually happen.
Unfortunately this is all a lot of theater. The law enacted in 1986 that forces congress to adhere to a prescribed budget (otherwise face across the board automatic cuts) has never taken effect since every year they just modify the law and adjust up the budget limit.
I guess this is always the problem when you try to write a law to control the people that can simply rewrite the law. Maybe there needs to be some designation of "super-law" which cannot be rewritten. This would basically be an amendment to the constitution, and I would love to see something wedged into there to prevent lawmakers from spending more money, though I loath to see them monkey with that document.