海角大神

The 鈥渇iscal cliff鈥� is a a metaphor for a government that no longer responds to the biggest challenges we face because it鈥檚 paralyzed by intransigent Republicans, obsessed by the federal budget deficit, and overwhelmed by big money from corporations, Wall Street, and billionaires.

If we had a functional government America would address three 鈥渃liffs鈥� posing far larger dangers to us than the fiscal one:

The child poverty cliff.

Between 2007 and 2011, the percentage of American school-age children living in poor households grew from 17 to 21%. Last year, according to the聽Agriculture Department, nearly 1 in 4 young children lived in a family that had difficulty affording sufficient food at some point in the year.

Yet federal programs to help children and lower-income families 鈥� food stamps, aid for poor school districts, Pell grants, child health care, child nutrition, pre- and post-natal care, and Medicaid 鈥� are being targeted by the Republican right. Over 60 percent of the cuts in the GOP鈥檚 most recent budget came out of these programs.聽

Even if these programs are preserved, they don鈥檛 go nearly far enough. But the Obama Administration doesn鈥檛 talk about reducing poverty in America. It talks only about preserving the middle class.

Yet unless we focus on better schools, better health, and improved conditions for these poor kids and their families, in a few years America will have a significant population of under-educated and desperate adults.

The baby-boomer healthcare cliff.

Healthcare costs are already 18% of GDP. Between now and 2030, when 76 million boomers join the ranks of the elderly,those costs will soar. This is the principal reason why the federal budget deficit is projected to grow.

The Affordable Care Act offers a start but it isn鈥檛 nearly adequate to limit these rising costs. The President and the Democrats have to lead the way in using Medicare and Medicaid鈥檚 bargaining power over providers to get lower costs and to move from a fee-for-service system to a fee-for-healthy outcomes system of healthcare.

But we can鈥檛 avoid the fact we have the most expensive and least effective system of health care in the world that鈥檚 spending 30 percent more on paperwork and administration than on keeping people healthy. The real healthcare cliff can only be avoided if we adopt a single-payer healthcare system.

The environmental cliff.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide jumped 3 percent in 2011 and are expected to jump another 2.6 percent this year according to聽scientists, putting the human race perilously close to the tipping point when ice caps irretrievably melt, sea-levels rise, and amount of available cropland in the world becomes dangerously small.

Yet Republicans (and their patrons, such as Charles and David Koch) continue to deny climate change. And the Administration is no longer pushing for a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax.

Yet unless we act to reduce carbon emissions, other major emitters won鈥檛 do so. The only binding pact so far is the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. never joined. And we鈥檙e taking no leadership at the international climate talks now taking place in Qatar.

Yes, America does face a cliff 鈥� not a fiscal cliff but a set of precipices we鈥檒l tumble over because the GOP鈥檚 obsession over government鈥檚 size and spending has obscured them. And Democrats so far haven鈥檛 been able or willing to sound the real alarms.