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Defense contractors are already bracing for the cuts and warn that the Pentagon is likely to slow the pace of spending this fall and harm the economy even before the bell tolls in January. Contractors like Lockheed Martin say the law requires them to issue warnings of possible layoffs 60 days before Jan. 1
-- meaning they'd arrive just days before the election. "I could only hope that this is a temporary aberration and that cooler heads will ultimately prevail when the price of inaction becomes even more apparent," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. On taxes, on the other hand, some argue that the impact of the fiscal cliff won't be too dramatic since most of the increases taking effect Jan. 1 can be addressed retroactively. For all the tough talk now, attitudes are likely to be reshaped by who wins the November election. Democrats see an Obama win as a mandate for sealing his promise four years to raise taxes on people in the top two brackets. Mitt Romney is on record as favoring a temporary fix to avert the fiscal cliff and give his incoming administration time to forge a longer-term solution. Either way, many people predict that the most likely outcome is for the warring parties to pass temporary legislation to punt the issue into next year to
let the new Congress and whoever controls the White House sort it out. Republicans are confident that Democrats -- just as they did two years ago
-- will agree to extend all of the tax cuts during a post-election lame duck session. For starters, both sides are calling for just a short-term extension of the Bush tax cuts anyway in order to buy time for lawmakers to do a complete rewrite of the tax code. "Doesn't it make sense to say, 'Look the president said in 2010 the economy is in such bad shape we couldn't afford to have a massive tax increase?'" said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the tax-writing Finance Committee. "Yet all of a sudden in an election year he's (Obama) got a different point of view," said Hatch. "Doesn't it make sense to put this over for a year and dedicate an extra year to tax reform?"
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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