Former top US officials press lawmakers to solve 'fiscal cliff'

Fifteen former top US national security officials urged lawmakers on Tuesday to put the United States on a sustainable fiscal path and avert automaic spending cuts that start in January, warning that Washington's global leadership was at stake.

The officials, who span eight presidential administrations and include former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Madeleine Albright and George Shultz, said they had formed a coalition to underscore the need for elected leaders to act.

"Not only has the passage of time exacerbated some of the economic problems, it has revealed a perhaps equally dangerous political one: Our inability to grapple with pressing fiscal challenges represents nothing less than a crisis in our democratic order," said retired Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the coalition.

Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the coalition was urging Congress to avert the "fiscal cliff" looming at the end of the year, when taxes are due to rise for all wage earners and $1 trillion in automatic government spending cuts over a decade go into force. He said the group also was pressing for substantial deficit reduction over the decade, wanted to see tax reforms to raise more revenue and was encouraging lawmakers to put entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security on a sustainable, long-term path.

"We must avoid driving our country over the fiscal cliff. No partisan ideology is worth the cost to our nation," Mullen said.

"But just averting the disaster and kicking the can on the tough structural decisions needed to place our economy on a sound footing for the future is not enough."

Mullen and others said the Defense Department, which was directed to cut $487 billion in projected spending under last year's Budget Control Act, would have to be prepared to trim back further.

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