Archive for January 1st, 2013
Cliffhanger for US economy
Posted by John, January 1st, 2013 - under Socialist Worker UK, US economy.
Tags: Alex Callinicos, Fiscal cliff
Comments: 7
In Europe as well as the US the super-rich and their media and political hangers on have done very well in the neoliberal era. This coalition has defined the deficit as the big problem that is holding the economy back.
Obama agrees with the Republicans about this. So he ended the debt crisis in July 2011 by agreeing on a set of tax increases and cuts in spending that were set to come into effect automatically on 1 January. The only way to stop this was for Congress to come up with a programme of measures to cut the deficit.
These automatic increases and cuts are the fiscal cliff.