To tackle the fiscal cliff, Mr. Obama is expected to initiate a new round of talks with leaders of Congress. The goal would be a "grand bargain" combining higher taxes and money-saving changes to federal benefit programs.
“If there’s a mandate in yesterday’s results, it’s a mandate to find a way for us to work together,” House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday. “My message today is not one of confrontation but of conviction.”
The White House said Mr. Obama called all the four top congressional leaders late Tuesday night after he knew he had won—reaching two of them then, and connecting with the other two Wednesday morning—and asked them to “put aside their partisan interests and work with common purpose.” In a post-midnight victory speech, the president identified “reducing our deficit” and “reforming our tax code” as among his top priorities.
- Focus Shifts to ‘Fiscal Cliff’, WSJ.com, November 8, 2017.
3. Falling off the cliff would mean a return to Clinton-era income tax rates, higher investment taxes, deep cuts to the defense budget, the end of extended unemployment benefits and the end of the payroll tax reduction. It would also include other items, such as new taxes on the rich, related to Obamacare.
In a vacuum, this isn’t exactly fiscal Armageddon. And yes, it would help close the near-term deficit. But, given our current vulnerabilities, it would hurt economic growth and therefore have less of a positive impact on the deficit than many believe. This is the type of short-term austerity that Europe has been trying, and the results have been dreadful.
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