Congress Decides Maritime Issues Amid Fiscal Policy Debate

This "Washington Insider" column first appeared in the January/February 2013 edition of The Maritime Executive. Despite threats to plunge the nation off the politically contrived “fiscal cliff,” saner heads ultimately prevailed and the President and Congress adopted the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. This limited bipartisan agreement avoided the most threatening aspect of the impending January 1, 2013 deadline – across-the-board tax increases that economists feared would drag the nation’s economy back into recession.