Sen. Levin on Fiscal Cliff agreement

WASHINGTON, D. C. -- U.S. Sen. Carl Levin issued this statement on the recent Fiscal Cliff agreement in Congress:

"It was essential that Congress avoid the highly damaging effects of going over the fiscal cliff. Inaction would have threatened to throw us back into a recession, and that was clearly unacceptable. So while I would have preferred an agreement that better addressed our historical shortfall in revenues, passing an imperfect agreement was far better than the alternative of returning to recession.

"But the harsh reality is that we have delayed only for two months the damaging automatic spending cuts called sequestration. As we seek in the coming months a more comprehensive approach to avoid sequestration, one that will require both prudent spending cuts and additional revenues, it is imperative that we focus on the hundreds of billions of dollars lost to tax avoidance schemes. Closing offshore tax loopholes and ending corporate tax avoidance gimmicks will help us avoid the harmful automatic cuts to important domestic and national security priorities and make the tax system fairer."