US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
    World / US and Canada

    US averts fiscal cliff

    By Associated Press in Washington (China Daily) Updated: 2013-01-03 07:49

    A weary Congress sent US President Barack Obama legislation to avoid the economy-threatening "fiscal cliff" of middle-class tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts late on Tuesday night, hours before financial markets reopened after the New Year's holiday.

    The bill's passage on a 257-167 vote in the House of Representatives sealed a hard-won political triumph for the president less than two months after he secured re-election while calling for higher taxes on the wealthy.

    US averts fiscal cliff

    Speaker of the House John Boehner (center) leaves the second House Republican Caucus meeting of the day with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp during a rare New Year's Day session on Tuesday in Washington. The House approved a Senate 'fiscal cliff' bill to avoid massive tax hikes and spending cuts. [Photo/Agencies]

    The economic and political stakes were considerable. Economists have warned that without action by Congress, the tax increases and spending cuts that technically took effect with the turn of the new year at midnight could cause unemployment to spike and send the economy into recession.

    The extraordinary late-night House vote took place less than 24 hours after the Senate passed the measure in the pre-dawn hours of New Year's Day. The legislation cleared the Senate hours after Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, veteran negotiators, sealed a deal.

    In addition to neutralizing middle class tax increases and spending cuts that technically took effect Monday at midnight, the legislation raises tax rates on incomes of more than $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. Remarkably, in a party that swore off tax increases two decades ago, dozens of Republicans supported the bill in both houses of Congress.

    Supporters of the bill in both parties expressed regret that the bill was narrowly drawn and fell far short of a sweeping plan that combined tax changes and spending cuts to reduce federal deficits. That proved to be a step too far in the two months since Obama called congressional leaders to the White House for a post-election stab at compromise.

    Majority Republicans did their best to minimize the bill's tax increases, just as they abandoned their demand from earlier in the day to add spending cuts to the package.

    "By making Republican tax cuts permanent, we are one step closer to comprehensive tax reform that will help strengthen our economy and create more and higher paychecks for American workers," said Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

    House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi also said the legislation included "permanent tax relief for the middle class," and she summoned lawmakers to provide bipartisan support as the Senate did.

    The bill would prevent an expiration of extended unemployment benefits for an estimated 2 million jobless, renew tax breaks for businesses and renewable energy purposes, block a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat elderly Medicare patients, stop a $900 pay increase for lawmakers from taking effect in March and head off a spike in milk prices.

    The bill would also raise the top tax rate on large estates to 40 percent, from 35 percent, and taxes on capital gains and dividends over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples would be taxed at 20 percent, up from 15 percent.

    It would stop $24 billion in spending cuts set to take effect over the next two months, although only about half of that total would be offset with spending reductions elsewhere in the budget.

    The fiscal cliff measure had cleared the Senate on a lopsided pre-dawn New Year's vote of 89-8, and House Republicans spent much of the day struggling to escape a political corner they found themselves in.

    If the House had failed to pass the Senate bill, any fiscal deal would have had to start from the beginning when a new Congress, with dozens of new members, was seated on Thursday. And any change in the legislation would have required the Senate to re-pass the measure before it could go to Obama for his signature.

    The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the measure would add nearly $4 trillion over a decade to federal deficits, a calculation that assumed taxes would otherwise have risen on taxpayers at all income levels. There was little or no evident concern among Republicans on that point, presumably because of their belief that tax cuts pay for themselves by expanding economic growth and do not cause deficits to rise.

    Obama, who had campaigned for re-election on the promise of protecting households making less than $250,000 a year from a tax increase, praised the agreement after the Senate's vote. "While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay," Obama said in a statement. "This agreement will also grow the economy and shrink our deficits in a balanced way - by investing in our middle class, and by asking the wealthy to pay a little more."

     

    Trudeau visits Sina Weibo
    May gets little gasp as EU extends deadline for sufficient progress in Brexit talks
    Ethiopian FM urges strengthened Ethiopia-China ties
    Yemen's ex-president Saleh, relatives killed by Houthis
    Most Popular
    Hot Topics

    ...
    日本按摩高潮a级中文片| 中文字幕你懂的| 国产成人无码免费看视频软件| 久久精品亚洲中文字幕无码麻豆 | 无码日韩精品一区二区免费暖暖| 亚洲一级特黄大片无码毛片 | 亚洲精品无码午夜福利中文字幕| 免费无码中文字幕A级毛片| 国产激情无码一区二区| 人妻少妇无码精品视频区| 国产资源网中文最新版| 免费无码黄十八禁网站在线观看 | 少妇人妻偷人精品无码视频| 中文字幕亚洲色图| 日韩亚洲不卡在线视频中文字幕在线观看 | 一区二区三区观看免费中文视频在线播放 | 中文人妻av高清一区二区| 国产午夜无码视频在线观看| 伊人久久综合精品无码AV专区| 人妻少妇精品中文字幕av蜜桃| 欧美日韩国产中文高清视频| 精品国产a∨无码一区二区三区| 亚洲av无码一区二区三区不卡| 在线中文字幕精品第5页| 最近中文字幕无免费| 制服丝袜中文字幕在线| 无码任你躁久久久久久老妇| 无码AⅤ精品一区二区三区| 精品无码人妻一区二区三区 | 亚洲AV无码专区亚洲AV伊甸园| 亚洲一区精品中文字幕| 日韩国产中文字幕| 亚洲中文字幕无码永久在线| 天天爽亚洲中文字幕| 中文字幕精品无码一区二区三区| 国产无码网页在线观看| 日日麻批免费40分钟无码| 精品国产一区二区三区无码| 超清无码无卡中文字幕| 国产aⅴ无码专区亚洲av| 2024你懂的网站无码内射|