The fiscal cliff “deal”

The following comments seem pretty much right to me:

• Steve Landsburg:  “This deal does absolutely nothing to control entitlement spending, which means it’s 100% fiscally irresponsible.” (Come on, Steve, tell us what you really think.)
• Greg Mankiw:  “After all the public discussion over the past couple years of what a good fiscal reform would [look] like, it is hard to imagine a deal that would be less responsive to the ideas of bipartisan policy wonks.”
• David Brooks:  “[T]he proposal is not a balance of taxes and spending cuts. It doesn’t involve a single hard decision. It does little to control spending. It abandons all of the entitlement reform ideas that have been thrown around.” 
• Bruce Bartlett:  “[G]etting Congress to act [is] … what economists call a time-inconsistency problem. The Congress that raises taxes and cuts benefits will suffer politically, while the benefits of lower deficits will accrue to future Congresses.” (This one is for Kim Schoenholtz.)
• Stan Zin:  “Using “quotes” around random “words” is a cheap ploy used “by” people who don’t “really” know how to write.”

Which is to say, lots of drama, but absolutely no movement on long-term budget issues. The good news? New episodes of Psych due February 23.