WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner voiced concern on Tuesday that a divided Washington may be unable to avoid a looming "fiscal cliff" at the end of this year that could push the country into a recession.
"I'm not confident at all," Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said of the chances of success by Capitol Hill and the White House to resolve a number of fiscal issues, including expiring tax hikes for millions of Americans and automatic spending cuts, known as a sequester, totaling $1.2 trillion that will begin to go into effect in January.
"The House has done its job on both the sequester and on the looming tax hike that will cost our economy 700,000 jobs. The Senate at some point has to act. And on both of these, where's the president, where's the leadership?" Boehner asked.
Business leaders and economists have warned that allowing the across-the-board spending cuts to go into effect at a time when tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 will also expire could drain the struggling U.S. economy of spending power.
Few political experts expect Congress to tackle the issues along with huge federal budget deficits and debt before the November 6 presidential and congressional elections.
Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday that the United States may lose its triple-A debt rating if budget negotiations failed to reduce the record U.S. debt, which recently topped $16 trillion.
Rival ratings agency Standard & Poor's stripped the United States of its top ratings last year after Congress failed to come up with a long-term deficit reduction plan and political fighting brought the country to the brink of default.
Moody's rates the United States AAA but has the country on negative outlook. That probably won't change until after Congress concludes budget talks next year, it said.
(Reporting By Richard Cowan; Editing by Eric Beech)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/house-speaker-boehner-says-not-confident-fiscal-cliff-144242574--business.html
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