January 8, 2013
In December 2012, Biden was named by Obama to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the country fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell once more proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made permanent much of the Bush tax cuts but raised rates on upper income levels.
The debt ceiling was increased on February 12, 2010, to $14.294 trillion. On April 15, 2011, Congress finally passed the 2011 United States federal budget, authorizing federal government spending for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2011, with a deficit of $1.48 trillion, without voting to increase the debt ceiling. The two Houses of Congress were unable to agree on a revision of the debt ceiling in mid-2011, resulting in the United States debt-ceiling crisis. The impasse was resolved with the passing on August 2, 2011, the deadline for a default by the U.S. government on its debt, of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which immediately increased the debt ceiling to $14.694 trillion, required a vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment, and established several complex mechanisms to further increase the debt ceiling and reduce federal spending.
On September 8, 2011, one of the complex mechanisms to further increase the debt ceiling took place as the Senate defeated a resolution to block a $500 billion automatic increase. The Senate's action allowed the debt ceiling to increase to $15.194 trillion, as agreed upon in the Budget Control Act. This was the third increase in the debt ceiling in 19 months, the fifth increase since President Obama took office, and the twelfth increase in 10 years. The August 2 Act also created the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction for the purpose of developing a set of proposals by November 23, 2011, to reduce federal spending by $1.2 trillion. The Act requires both houses of Congress to convene an "up-or-down" vote on the proposals as a whole by December 23, 2011. The Joint Select Committee met for the first time on September 8, 2011.
The debt ceiling was raised once more on January 30, 2012, to a new high of $16.394 trillion.
At midnight on Dec. 31, 2012, a major provision of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) is scheduled to go into effect. The crucial part of the Act provided for a Joint Select Committee of Congressional Democrats and Republicans — the so-called 'Supercommittee '— to produce bipartisan legislation by late November 2012 that would decrease the U.S. deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. To do so, the committee agreed to implement by law — if no other deal was reached before Dec. 31 — massive government spending cuts as well as tax increases or a return to tax levels from previous years. These are the elements that make up the 'United States fiscal cliff.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_cei...
Debt Ceiling, Fiscal Issues, Paying the Bills of Congress, AIG Bailout Lawsuit (2013) | |
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