The wonderful, work-based, affluence-inducing, effects of low marginal tax rates is not the only fundamental economic principle that Ibn Khaldun got right.
But CBO as well as the Joint Tax Committee woefully underestimate the negative economic effects of higher marginal tax rates, which the market recognizes as implied by higher government spending.
In any case, progress in averting the fiscal cliff will depend on one side acknowledging the need for more tax revenue and the other side acknowledging the negative incentive effects of higher marginal tax rates.