Fiscal Cliff Uncertainty

CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: Well, of course, we wish you a very happy new year and a very warm welcome as we kick off 2013 on CNN STUDENT NEWS. My name is Carl Azuz. We are glad you`re joining us. We hope your year is off to a good start.

One question we had going in to the break was, will Congress and President Obama find a way to avoid the fiscal cliff? When we put this show together last night, we still had that question. What came to be knows is the fiscal cliff was really a series of automatic tax increases and government spending cuts that were scheduled to take effect at the start of the year.

The reason - U.S. Government has too much debt. Now, the president and Congress could have avoided that fiscal cliff by coming up with the compromise, a different plan to reduce the debt. But as of yesterday, still no agreement. There are two main ways to reduce debt: cut down on spending and or raise taxes. One big sticking point was whom to raise taxes on and by how much? The president wanted families making more than $250,000 a year to pay more in taxes. He said they could afford it. Critics said the economy is too weak to raise taxes on anyone.

The Senate came up with a bipartisan compromise to raise taxes, but only on families making more than $450,00 a year. The plan would be a temporary fix, it would last for two months, and it would delay any cuts in government spending. The thing is, the compromise also has to pass the U.S. House of Representatives, and it wasn`t clear yesterday if it would do that. Cnn.com has your latest updates.