Ayoon wa Azan (Postponed but not Solved)

The USA stood over the fiscal cliff at the end of the past year and almost fell in there dragging along the world, were it not the Obama Administration and the American lawmakers who came up with a solution on day one of the New Year, thus rescuing America and the world from a disaster. As a result, the fiscal markets were revived and the American economy was able to benefit from 155,000 new jobs this past month, thus increasing the investors’ trust. This is what we have heard, seen and read recently; but is that true? I believe that the fiscal crisis has been postponed but not solved. The new deadline for overlooking the abyss is early March or so, when the Administration and the Congress will be re-negotiating issues like cutting 100 billion dollars from the governmental spending and extending the debt-ceiling to more than 16.4 trillion dollars, as well as reaching a budget agreement before March 27, when the term for temporary spending will be over. We now know that the tax increase hit only 0.7 percent of the Americans while 99.3 percent of the taxes remained unchanged; so did the governmental spending. However, the tax policy center did all its calculations and decided that there will be a tax increase for the one percent of the Americans with the highest income, from 28 percent in 2008 to 36 percent this year. This means that they will be paying the highest income and profit taxes since 1979. Following the agreement, President Obama said that he will not be discussing the cuts in government spending, i.e. the health and social guarantees for the poor. However, Senator Mitch McConnell, the head of the Republican minority at the Senate, immediately responded by saying that the Republicans will insist on discussing the subject. Barack Obama prefers that the suggested that a cut of expenditures of about 1.2 trillion dollars be taken from the ministry of defense, the annual budget of which is still sky rocketing despite the fall of communism in 1989 and the absence of any international foe to justify military expenses that exceed those of rest of the world all together. The American Right media said that Obama has won and some threatened that this will be his last victory. We could say that this is only wishful thinking. However, the temporary solution hurt the Republican Party, which makes me think that it will be more dangerous and stubborn in the next negotiations. Speaker John Boehner made several threats and then caved. This angered many Republicans. Indeed, in 2011, Boehner obtained the support of all the Republican members. This time however, he won with the votes of 220 out of 426 members. Twelve Republicans abandoned him, including eight who voted for someone else, two who abstained from voting, one who just attended the session, and one who was absent. The dispute between the Republicans was not confined to the persona of the parliament speaker. The majority of the Senate supported the agreement while the majority of the House of Representatives opposed it. The opponents included Eric Cantor, the head of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, a man who belongs to the radical rightist wing at the party. Observers expect Cantor to reach high posts. Other observers believe that the expired 112th Congress was the worst ever, since it issued the least number of laws than any previous Congress. The same observers also say that the current 113th Congress could be worse, in light of the apparent divisions within the Republican Party and between the two parties. I will not take the risk of saying that, now that he has been released from the restrictions of working for a second term, Barack Obama will be more assertive than he was in his first term; and that he will insist of protecting the rights of the poor in the face of the Republicans’ commitment to defend the tax exemptions of the rich. We will learn whether we are faced with a new Obama or with the same old Obama within two months. Meanwhile, I believe that the president has enough support to impose the politics that he wants. Indeed, votes that he obtained in the presidential elections and the elections of the Senate and the House of Representatives (despite the majority of republicans there) were in favor of the Democrats. This means that Obama obtained a popular support that he must not let go of. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.