A phony agreement.

Senator McMumbles and VP Biden agreed to avert the Fiscal Cliff. How does this "agreement" stack up historically?

When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased taxes in return for spending cuts—cuts that never ultimately came—they did so at ratios of 1:3 and 1:2.
“In 1982, President Reagan was promised $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes,” Americans for Tax Reform says of those two incidents. “The tax hikes went through, but the spending cuts did not materialize. President Reagan later said that signing onto this deal was the biggest mistake of his presidency.
"In 1990, President George H.W. Bush agreed to $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The tax hikes went through, and we are still paying them today. Not a single penny of the promised spending cuts actually happened.”

This time Sen McMumbles agreed to $41 in tax increases for every $1 of  spending cuts. When? Well, that's the trick you see. The Dems already know how to avoid the promised cuts.

How effective will these tax increases be in reducing the deficits? Not very. The tax increases will bring in $60B/year, assuming that higher earners will not be able to compensate. However, the deficit is near a Trillion/year and the Dems plan to increase spending.