America’s recent presidential election answered the question of whether an increase in revenues will be part of the country’s long-run deficit-reduction plan. The answer is yes: there is now bipartisan agreement on the need for a “balanced” approach that includes revenue increases and spending cuts.
But there are still deep political and ideological divisions about how additional revenues should be raised and who should pay higher taxes. If a preliminary agreement on these questions is not reached by the end of the year, the economy faces a “fiscal cliff” of $600 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts that will shave about 4% from GDP and trigger a recession.
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