Senate, Tax Hikes | featured news

House members were meeting to decide whether they would go along with the Senate's approval of a last-minute deal to pull the U.S. back from the so-called fiscal cliff.

Senate leaders groped for a last-minute compromise Saturday to avoid middle-class tax increases and possibly prevent deep spending cuts at the dawn of the new year as President Barack Obama warned that failure could mean a "self-inflicted wound to the economy."

It may not sound like it from the rhetoric, but both the House and Senate have passed separate bills to delay big tax increases awaiting nearly every taxpayer next year if Congress and the White House can't agree on a plan to avert the "fiscal cliff."...

President Barack Obama offered strong praise Tuesday for a deficit reduction plan put together by a bipartisan group of senators, calling the measure's mix of tax hikes and spending reforms "broadly consistent" with his own approach to the current debt ceiling crisis.