Reapproaching the Fiscal Cliff     During the coming period of
negotiation and uncertainty, investors and business people need
to keep in mind that no one in Washington wants to go off this
cliff. Even before the election, Congress had voted to fund the
government through March, indicating a clear willingness to at
least kick the can down the road. What is more, a bipartisan
group of eight senators, calling itself the “Gang of Eight,” was
formed well before the election to devise at least a minimum
down payment on the deficit that would forestall all the
sequestration of discretionary spending, mostly on defense,
something on which the 2011 debt ceiling compromise otherwise
would have insisted. House Speaker John Boehner had already
outlined the basis of a compromise on the Bush tax cuts. So this
process began weeks ago. Still, some pieces of the cliff will be
easier to level than others.  The easiest aspects to fix are the
scheduled imposition of a broader-based alternative minimum tax
(AMT) and the schedule