Toomey: Tax Hikes May Be Inevitable

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) signaled this week that Republican lawmakers may be left with no choice but to accept a deficit reduction deal that includes new revenues as the country approaches the "fiscal cliff."

"It's not clear to me that there may be another way to do it in the future," Toomey said at a Brookings Institution discussion when asked about his party's openness to raising taxes to avoid another fiscal crisis.

Toomey, who lives in Zionsville, Lehigh County, began serving as U.S. senator last year. Toomey has an

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In January, nearly $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases are scheduled to take effect unless Congress can come up with a legislative solution.

With a deadline five months away, Toomey acknowledged that the outcome of the fiscal-cliff negotiations during Congress' post-election, lame-duck session would largely rest on political, rather than economic, realities.