anon1m0us: Actually, they cancelled the raise for Congress, and will probably cancel raises for the civil service (which is a leading employer of Orthodox Jews). The spending parts of the “fiscal cliff” were postponed for a few weeks, so they are still “up in the air”.
All they decided was on a broad tax increase including and probably most burdensome on anyone who is working for wages (or self-employed), earning less than $105K (per person, double that if both spouses have similar incomes – no discount for families under payroll tax). The “rich” will pay more money, but the middle class have the worst percentage changes to disposable income.