cartoon by Khalil Bendib
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Do Now
Should the wealthiest Americans pay more taxes to help fix our Federal deficit?
Introduction
You may have heard a lot of talk about the fiscal cliff. What exactly does that mean? Well, in 2010, President Obama and Congress agreed that if a new national budget was not agreed upon before the first of January then a special plan will go into effect. Many economists say that this special plan will send the entire country, once again, into a recession because there will be increases in taxes and huge spending cuts...causing unemployment to rise dramatically...hence the plan will send the country down a fiscal cliff.
The cartoon above by political cartoonist Khalil Bendib, expresses the opinion that the fiscal cliff will not affect the wealthiest Americans and thus they are able to parachute down and land safely.
Ok. So, that's the situation, but let's examine why the President and Congress cannot agree on a new budget that perhaps will not send the country into a tailspin.
Creating a budget is simple idea, but can be an extremely complex process. The Federal Government must develop a plan that determines what money it should spend annually along with what money it should receive from taxes, making sure that it does not spend way more than it receives... unfortunately, the Federal Government has spent way more than it has received for the past 12 years, but let's not get into that now. Here is where the argument gets most heated:
