While most Americans were preparing to ring in the New Year at parties across the U.S. on New Year’s Eve, the President and Congress were still scrambling to avoid the “Fiscal Cliff” which would hike taxes on most of the New Year’s revelers while implementing wide-ranging deficit-reducing federal budget cuts. Despite plenty of time to work out an agreement before the November election and after, the New Year began with Congress still needing to send the final package to the President. Although the President did sign the agreement, which did increase income and capital gains taxes, the budget cuts, or Sequestration, were delayed until the end of February 2013. The fate of Sequestration cuts, the need to increase the National Debt Limit beyond $16 trillion, and the need to fund the federal government beyond March, combine to give the President and Congress another chance to go through another round of negotiations that could again result in a last-minute, late-night agreement.

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