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US President Barack Obama delivers a statement at the White House in Washington DC., the United States, Jan. 1, 2013.(Xinhua/Zhang Jun)
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a Senate bill on Tuesday night, giving the final congressional approval to the bipartisan compromise to avert the "fiscal cliff."
After a long day of deliberation, the bill was adopted on a 257-167 vote and thus is ready for U.S. President Barack Obama's signature.
The measure, overwhelmingly endorsed by the Democrat-led Senate in the early morning, would extend current tax rates for most American households and postpone the automatic spending cuts for two months.
The passage ended weeks of political bickering around the fiscal crisis.
The bipartisan proposal would prevent a tax rate rise on individuals with an annual income below 400,000 U.S. dollars and households making up to 450,000 dollars. Under the deal, jobless insurance benefits for about 2 million long-term unemployed would be extended for a year.
Meanwhile, the start of 1.2 trillion dollars in automatic spending cuts over 10 years, known as the "sequester," would be put off for two months. It had been scheduled to begin with the start of the new year.
At a White House press conference held after the passage of the bill in the lower chamber, Obama said he would sign the law that raises taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans while preventing a middle-class tax hike that could have sent the economy back into recession and obviously had a severe impact on families all across America.
"This law is just one step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy and broaden opportunity for everybody. The fact is the deficit is still too high, and we're still investing too little in the things that we need for the economy to grow as fast as it should," Obama told reporters.
Obama acknowledged that the "messy nature" of the process over the past several weeks in resolving the "fiscal cliff" has made businesses more uncertain and consumers less confident.
Obama stressed that he was "very open to compromise" in finding ways to curb the costs of major U.S. entitlement programs and cutting unnecessary spending in U.S. government in the future.
