Let's all be clear on a few points about our current mess with the economy and the "fiscal cliff" coming on Tuesday:

1. The economic collapse is due to a collapse of the banking and credit sector, due to deregulation and an insane leveraging of risky debt of up to 70 times (70,000%).  An economic house of cards was constructed so that a very few players could get fantastically rich, damn the consequences to the economy or even the institutions which housed these players; many banks took huge hits and survived only by taking huge hunks of taxpayer money.  Many banks failed.  The bankers did not fail; they go rich and held onto their ill-gotten money.  This entire system was created, defended, and bailed out by the Republicans, led by George W. Bush
2. The current crisis was a creation of the Republican Party, as a response to the Simpson-Bowles plan, the crisis created in the first place by Republicans, and the need to raise the debt ceiling the last time paying the national bills became due.  The sequestration, the tax raises and spending cuts contained within it, are more stringent than Simpson-Bowles, and a lot more stringent that anything proposed by President Obama and the Democrats.  Republicans are responsible for these automatic tax increases and spending cuts.  
3. Republicans historically spend more and grow the size of government more than Democrats.  Go look at the Federal Budget, all that information and data is available online.  See for yourself.  Please.  It's important to know, too, that debts and deficits go up much more under Republicans because, for all their free-spending, they simply do no pay their bills.  These two dynamics remain an issue for them today: how to increase spending, especially on war and weapons, while not paying taxes to fund their spending.  
4. All this nonsense about debt, deficits, and the budget is political bullshit by Republicans.  Let's not forget, for a moment, that it's the House of Representatives which initiates, builds, and proposes the Federal Government Budget.  This is written under and into our Constitution.  There's no wiggle-room here for them; ignoring this fact does not make it go away.  Don't come crying about a budget or lack of one, Republicans; do your job and make one.  Also, now that time has come to pay the piper, and now that it's clear that House Republicans intend to increase spending and then not pay for it, they are walking back all the fuss and bother created by them before the elections.  The debt, deficits, and budget are suddenly not so important, now that the elections are over.
5. What we have now is this situation: our economy collapsed at the hands of the Republicans.  The fiscal cliff and the sequestration which will drive this economic downturn, is a creation entirely of the Republicans.  And now that things have reached a crisis, a crisis created by Republicans, they refuse to do anything to help ease or fix the very problems they created.  Worse, they insist upon some privilege or facility to blame President Obama for their own sins, misdeeds, and inaction on those sins and misdeeds.  Worst of all, they insist that President Obama and the Democrats clean up the Republican mess, and insist that they, the Republicans have some kind of claim to hold responsible Obama and the Democrats for cleaning up the Republican mess, a clean-up or fix which must first meet with the approval of the Republicans, who, themselves, created this mess and then refuse to do anything to fix their own mess.  

It's stunning how arrogant and stupid these Republicans are.  You must believe, as I do, that they do not come to help.  Do not ask them what good they do, for doing good is not their intention.  We, our government, and our nation deserve much better than this, Americans.