国际英语新闻:Obama ‘Modestly Optimistic’ About Fiscal Deal

The president had raised the figure to $400,000, while Republicans wanted a $1 million threshold.

Chris Krueger, a policy analyst with Guggenheim Securities, said most Americans share the president’s frustration with Washington’s inability to agree on a solution.

“You talk to most folks on the street, and no one could possibly imagine that the Congress would be so irresponsible and so childish as to basically take their toys home and not solve what is arguably a self-inflicted wound to the economy,” he said.

Krueger said Americans could see a repeat of the “fiscal cliff” drama in the coming months, when Washington is forced to reach an agreement on raising the government’s debt limit.

“That is a much more, quite frankly, frightening cliff. And that is where we believe remains the true forcing mechanism where Congress will, ultimately, get a deal, but it may well wait until late February, early March, around that second fiscal cliff,” said Krueger.

The United States faces the fiscal cliff because tax cuts implemented by former president George W. Bush expire at the end of the year. 

The automatic spending cuts and tax increases were put in place in 2011, as an incentive to both parties to cut the deficit, after they were unable to agree on a larger deficit reduction plan at that time.