Heidi N. Moore has a delicious translation of Speaker Boehner’s letter to Pres. Obama about THE FISCAL CLIFF, and you should definitely read it. (“We’ve been pretty clear that we don’t want to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year – but if we absolutely have to, then we insist on cutting government spending on programs like social security and Medicare.”)

If this sarcasm piques your interest in the cliff and now you’re like, oh maybe I should read about that I guess, MAY I SUGGEST this thread in which Heidi and her Guardian pal Dominic Rushe answer reader questions about the fiscal cliff. Their responses are extremely readable and understandable.

FOR EXAMPLE, Heidi answered the question, “Why is it called a cliff?” super simply (TO SCARE YOU), and then explained the whole mess in four short paragraphs.

“There’s no good reason that it’s called a cliff! The phrase was invented by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke in February and everyone stuck with it.