Fiscal cliff?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Fiscal cliff?

- The Fiscal Cliff Explained, by About.com.

2. The day after a hard-fought election that left Barack Obama in the White House and control of Congress divided between the two parties, the nation’s political leaders promised to try to avoid year-end spending cuts and tax increases that threaten to push the U.S. back into recession.

In carefully worded comments Wednesday, major actors in the fiscal drama were both conciliatory to their adversaries and resolute in sticking to their principles. Whether this represents a temporary truce, or a step toward a pact to trim the deficit, won't be known for weeks.

But the pressure is on. Deep, automatic federal-spending cuts and tax increases—a combination widely known as the “fiscal cliff”—will hit in January unless Mr. Obama and Congress agree to some other way to reduce the budget deficit.

Going over the cliff, economists say, would not only risk another recession, but would intensify anxiety about the dysfunction of the U.S. political system. Uncertainty over political turmoil could lead to more turbulence like Wednesday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 312.95 points, or 2.4%, to 12932.73. That was this year’s largest decline in both points and percentage terms. Asian markets also fell in early trading Thursday, with Tokyo down 1.2% and South Korea down 1.4%.

Investors in the U.S. fueled declines in some sectors seen as possibly vulnerable to regulatory or other changes under a second Obama term, according to analysts. Investors erased $37 billion in stock-market value from the six largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., which are likely to face tighter regulation under Mr. Obama than was expected if Mitt Romney had won.