New Taxes to avoid US ‘fiscal cliff,’ Bono warns world’s poor will be worst hit

US President Barack Obama stands firm and tells Republicans they would have to accept tax increases for the rich if the US is to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, the term that refers to what will happen when the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year and a set of draconian spending cuts kick in.  Obama opens talks with the House of Representatives with a proposal to raise $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue from the wealthy over the next decade.  That’s double the $800 billion that was on the table during discussions in the summer of 2011.  Why should anyone outside the United States care?  Because the spending cuts expected in January would “devastate programs to help the world’s poor, leading to more than 60,000 deaths.”  That’s according to Bono, the lead singer of Irish band U2, who was in Washington Tuesday to lobby leaders of both parties to protect anti-poverty programs.


Read more on Rappler and about Bono’s views on the Wall Street Journal.