(Washington) – The U.S. Senate has approved legislation aimed at averting the “fiscal cliff” by stopping most tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts that were due to begin with the new year. After months of agonizing over the crisis, weeks of debate about a possible solution, and days of intense, closed-door negotiations, members of the US Senate voted overwhelmingly 89-8 to pass a controversial bill that averts the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
It now goes to the House of Representatives, which could hold a vote on the measure later New Year’s Day. US President Barack Obama in a statement urged the House to “pass it without delay.” If the measure is agreed by both chambers of Congress, it would hand Obama a victory by hiking tax rates on households earning over $450,000 a year, but exempt everyone else from a planned tax increase.
“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 his statement. The deal puts off $109 billion in budget cuts across the government for two months, but in the process sets the stage for a new showdown between Obama’s Democrats and Republicans in dysfunctional Washington at the end of February.
