US president signs bill to avoid fiscal cliff
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Washington - US President Barack Obama signed a bill sealing a compromise agreed this week by Congress to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, the White House said.
The Democrat signed into law the legislation allowing tax cuts from a Republican administration to expire for wealthier Americans and postponing across-the-board spending cuts for two months that had been due to kick in Tuesday.
Experts had feared that the planned expiry of tax cuts for all taxpayers and the spending cuts would together have dealt a blow to the economy of more than 600 billion dollars, potentially tipping it off what was termed a fiscal cliff and back into recession.
Last-minute negotiations in the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday yielded the compromise.
The president signed the bill remotely while on vacation in Hawaii with a device called an autopen.//DPA
