FILE -In this Friday, Feb. 20, 2009, file photo, President Barack Obama listens as Vice President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House. Asked to name the one step they'd push most urgently if they were the newly re-elected President Barack Obama, a dozen leading economists advise President Barack Obama to sidestep the "fiscal cliff" during his second term of office. Economists say that the package of tax increases and deep spending cuts that will take effect in January unless Congress reaches a budget deal by then, could tip the U.S. economy back into recession next year. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)

Now that the election is over, Washington’s attention is turning to the fiscal cliff, a set of policy changes which would raise taxes and cut spending automatically at the end of the year unless Congress acts.

<freeform> <script data-hide-byline data-hide-title type=”text/javascript” src=”http://cdn.spundge.com/embed/stories/694/”></script><noscript><h1>Fiscal cliff: The election is over, now job No. 1 is solving debt woes</h1><h2>It's the issue that didn't get much attention during the presidential campaign, but now becomes the top priority for the nation's newly re-elected President Barack Obama — the fiscal cliff. "America is facing an urgent crisis," warned a group of high-profile investors in a letter printed on a full page ad — and addressed to candidates for president and Congress — in the New York Times one day before the election. By urgent, the investors are referring to the 55 ...</h2><a href=”http://cdn.spundge.com/stories/694/embedded/” target=”_blank”>View <em>“Fiscal cliff: The election is over, now job No. 1 is solving debt woes”</em> on Spundge</a></noscript></freeform>