There’s no point denying it, says Alan Greenspan: the tax increases that will come with any solution to the fiscal cliff will hurt economic growth. And that’s fine with him, if it means finally dealing with the U.S. budget deficit. “If the cost of getting out of this is a modest recession, I think that is a cheap price,” Mr. Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said at a conference in Washington on Friday. The United States has run a budget shortfall in excess of $1-trillion for four consecutive years, and the country’s debt is on the fast track to unsustainability. Mr. Greenspan, taking questions at a ... (full story)