Most in US Won’t Be Able to Escape ‘Fiscal Cliff’
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
ABCNews.com
November 13, 2012
veryone who pays income tax — and some who don’t —will feel it.
So will doctors who accept Medicare, people who get unemployment aid, defense contractors, air traffic controllers, national park rangers and companies that do research and development.
The package of tax increases and spending cuts known as the “fiscal cliff” takes effect in January unless Congress passes a budget deal by then. The economy would be hit so hard that it would likely sink into recession in the first half of 2013, economists say.
And no matter who you are, it will be all but impossible to avoid the pain.
Middle income families would have to pay an average of about $2,000 more next year, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has calculated.
Up to 3.4 million jobs would be lost, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. The unemployment rate would reach 9.1 percent from the current 7.9 percent. Stocks could plunge. The nonpartisan CBO estimates the total cost of the cliff in 2013 at $671 billion.
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