Ask Peter: Avoiding the Fiscal Cliff and Preventing Tax Increases

WASHINGTON – Congressman Peter Roskam (IL-06) released the latest installment of Ask Peter, a frequent video conversation with Sixth District residents about issues important to them. In this segment, Congressman Roskam responded to an email from Gerald White in Oak Brook about the fiscal cliff and what the House will do to prevent the upcoming tax increases.

To watch the video, click here or the image below.

Ask Peter videos are available to the public at Roskam.house.gov, https://facebook.com/reproskam, https://twitter.com/peterroskam, and via press release. The videos are sent to constituents via e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter, depending on how they contacted the Roskam office.

Transcript:

I’m Congressman Peter Roskam, welcome back to Ask Peter.

I got an email from Gerald White in Oak Brook, who is raising a concern about the fiscal cliff.

The fiscal cliff is where our economy gets whipsawed. Whipsawed by a massive tax increase at the end of the year coupled with very, very stark spending cuts that will put our economy into a recession, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

How do we avoid this?

Well, first of all the House has already acted to replace these automatic spending cuts with a more thoughtful approach that meets thoughtful budget goals but does it in a way that doesn’t create a spiral downward that has an adverse impact on our mission. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is we will have a vote in July to make sure that the tax hikes don’t go into place. I think it’s very important that we come together as a country right now to avoid this fiscal cliff. There’s ways to do it that make sense where Republicans and Democrats can come together and thoughtful people can agree.

I need to hear from you. Emails, phone, faxes, cards whatever I need to hear from you.

I’m Congressman Peter Roskam. Thanks for watching.

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