Obama And Congress Must Tackle Impending Financial Crisis Immediately
President Obama, fresh off the heels of a sweeping electoral victory against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, has announced his willingness to work with Congress to avert financial disaster come January. January is when sequestration is scheduled to hit and the Bush Tax Cuts are set to expire. There are some smaller tax cuts that are also set to expire, but they are minor in the eyes of lawmakers.
Congress scheduled massive cuts to defense spending, entitlements, and the general budget if a deficit reduction plan is not reached. The Simpson-Bowles Commission released their findings and a specific plan for reduction more than two years ago, but neither party wanted to see it enacted. The expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts will see taxes rise on every tax bracket in America if Congress does not act. Economists and financial analysts said that, if a deal isn’t struck, the American economy will run and jump off a fiscal cliff and a second recession is a good possibility.
House Speaker John Boehner has said he is willing to work with the President and the Senate on a package that could possibly include seeing taxes rise on some income brackets if it is part of a true deficit reduction deal.
Boehner said:
“The question we should be asking is not which taxes should I raise to get more revenue, but rather: which reforms can we agree on that will get our economy moving again?”
Republicans are entering a period of introspection of how they failed to capture the White House in the face of an America with a stubbornly high unemployment rate, trillion dollar deficits, and new regulations such as the Affordable Care Act expected to make more of dent in the budget. The one thing everyone is agreeing on is that the Republican Party lost their shot at an easily winnable Senate majority because they fielded candidates that were viewed as being way outside of the mainstream.
Republicans are recognizing that the electorate in America is changing in a way where having a voting edge among just white voters is not going to carry the day nationwide anymore.
