How did BAC fare in 2008?
This has been a rhetorical question.
Politicians cutting spending? Surely you jest. They'll simply decrease the rate of spending growth marginally and pass it off as a spending cut, just as they've done countless times in the past. IOW we're going over the fiscal cliff. The question is when.
I'm not sure what "fiscal cliff" you are referring to. The "fiscal cliff" does not in any way involve an increase in spending. "The Fiscal Cliff" is a phrase used to describe a set of events that occur on January 1, 2013 if Congress doesn't change current law. These events are a combination of 2 laws created in the past that take effect on that date.
The first (increasing income taxes) is:
The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (Pub.L. 111-312, H.R. 4853, 124 Stat. 3296, enacted December 17, 2010)
Which provided a two-year extension of the provisions of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA), together known as the "Bush tax cuts." Meaning that income tax rates will return to what they were prior to 2001 when the lower tax rates expire on January 1, 2013, unless Congress creates a new law to maintain lower tax rates.
The second (cutting spending) is:
The Budget Control Act of 2011 (Pub.L. 112-25, S. 365, 125 Stat. 240, enacted August 2, 2011)
Which requires a reduction of $1.2 trillion in mandatory and discretionary government spending while exempting Social Security, Medicaid, civil and military employee pay, and veterans from the reductions.
This "fiscal cliff" only occurs if Congress fails to change existing law. It is believed by some that the reduction in private income (due to increased taxes) and the reduction in government spending (due to the $1.2 trillion spending reduction) both happening at the same time will pull so much money out of the economy that we will slide back into a recession involving massive job loss.
I'm not yet convinced that this is a large enough portion of the entire U.S. economy to really have such an adverse effect.
In reality, Congress can pass new laws regarding government spending and tax rates after January 1, and make them retroactive back to the first of the year. Therefore, Congress has several months yet before any adverse effects of the "fiscal cliff" begin to materialize, and as long as they make changes retroactive and act before any adverse effects are experienced, this whole "fiscal cliff" is mostly just a bunch of smoke and mirrors used to create enough fear to get away with increasing tax rates and cancelling spending cuts with minimal political damage.