When Speaker of the House John Boehner and President Barack Obama reached an agreement to avoid the dreaded fiscal cliff last week, the threat of economic turmoil was not eliminated.

The nations financial crisis is not over and we are still burdened with a massive debt. While the legislature has come to an agreement that has stunted our plummet into financial turmoil, the arrangement has only pushed the prospect of sequestration off until March.

Over the next two months Congress needs to forget about the partisan squabbling that led to pushing the debt problem off for so long.

The problem is not a Democrat or Republican issue, but an American one.

Regardless of who or what is to blame for it, the debt is a burden that everyone should sacrifice to recover from.

The problem has manyfacets that revolve around the national governmentsincreasing debt of about$16.4 trillion. The $16.4 trillionis the current limit that thefederal government is allowed to borrow to pay its expenditures.

That limit, known as the debt ceiling, has increased byaround $1 trillion every year since 1990 causing the same battle every time when both
parties either refuse to, or neglect to, agree on how tobalance the budget.

Republican representativeswill not raise tax rates onanyone until Democrats agree to cut spending for government programs notably so-called entitlement programs like welfare or to cut corporate regulations. Democrats will not agree on government spending cuts unless they can raise taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans a plan they believe will strengthen the middle class.

This type of back and forth arguing will not work and has only hindered America from overcoming the debt. We will continue to run into the same fiscal cliffs, procrastinating with partisan banterunavoidably pushing theobligation on to futuregenerations.

The only way to avoid this snowball effect is if everyonesacrifices for the cause. Taxrates of the wealthiest Americans should be raised and government spending should be cut. The battle should not exist between choosing the option that will re-electpoliticians back into office.

Having everyone sacrifice is definitely not going to be the most popular route. It is even possible that it will not be
effective.

But when the alternative is letting the government argue over which part of the population should be burdened more than the other hoping that it fixes the problem, it is nobetter at predicting the future then what has been done for the past twenty years.