Fear, finger-pointing mount over US fiscal cliff

Fear, finger-pointing mount over US fiscal cliff
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - Top United States (US) lawmakers voiced rising fear on Sunday that the country would go over "the fiscal cliff" in nine days, triggering harsh spending cuts and tax hikes, and some Republicans charged that was President Barack Obama's goal.

"It's the first time that I feel it's more likely that we will go over the cliff than not," Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on CNN's State Of The Union.

"If we allow that to happen it will be the most colossal consequential act of congressional irresponsibility in a long time, maybe ever in American history," Mr Lieberman added.

The Democratic president and Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the two key negotiators, are not talking and are out of town for the Christmas holidays.