No fiscal deal without tax hikes for U.S. wealthy: Geithner (2)

"There's not going to be an agreement without rates going up," Geithner said.

The treasury secretary earlier this week presented a proposal to avoid the "fiscal cliff" to congressional leaders by boosting revenues by 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars over the next decade.

The proposal included about 400 billion dollars in spending cuts on entitlement programs as well as new stimulus spending, which were brushed off by Republicans as "not serious."

Unless Congress acts by the end of this year, a combination of tax increases and sweeping spending cuts, dubbed the "fiscal cliff," and with a combined amount of about 600 billion U.S. dollars, is set to kick in.

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