The tax cut compromise as a sign of broken politics

So in order to avert a middle class tax hike, Obama agreed to revert tax cuts for everyone and a cut to the payroll tax. In order to give Obama and his party what they wanted, Republicans agreed to extend unemployment benefits.  Everyone wins, just as long as the government can spend money that it doesn't have.

When people worry about inflation or deflation, they are wrong as long as politics are functional. However, events like the recent compromise demonstrate that politics are not really functional.  If more compromises of this nature are expected, then that means that it might take a crisis to fix the deficit.  If the crisis is about dollar confidence, then the crisis will be inflationary. If the government is able to react with austerity to head off the crisis then the crisis will be deflationary.

It is hard to know which way the economy will break, but with each compromise of this nature the probability of a long term goldilocks goes down.