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There’s a trillion-dollar time-bomb in Washington that’s been ticking for nearly ten years and it’s about to explode.

“We don’t have more time for any more games,” President Barack Obama said this week.

The countdown started with a sweeping set of tax cuts championed a decade ago by then-president George Bush.

The cuts saved
millions of American taxpayers a lot of money. Rich Americans, who pay
the most taxes, got the biggest savings but over the long term, all
Americans will get the bill: 1.7 trillion dollars in revenue that the
government didn’t collect, had to borrow and will ultimately have to
pay back.

To keep the
official cost down, the cuts were only enacted for ten years. Unless
President Obama and Congress can agree on a long-term plan, the cuts
expire at the end of the year and Americans will see their taxes
suddenly snap back up again.

Many economists say that would be a big blow to the U.S. economy, still inching away from recession.

Adding to the
pressure, this is campaign season in the United States, with voters
going to the polls in November to elect a new set of lawmakers for
Congress. It’s a bad time to talk about higher taxes.

Republicans are
campaigning to extend the Bush tax cuts, arguing that they will both
help America’s families make it through tough times and spur the
recovery by the entire U.S. economy.

President Obama
says rich Americans don’t need money that could be better spent
elsewhere and plans to extend the the tax cuts only to families making
less than $250,000.

Obama’s Democrats – down dramatically in the polls and facing a tough re-election campaign – are split.

In the weeks ahead, the Democrats and some Republicans have to agree on a plan the president will support.

If they can’t
agree, almost every American who sends tax money to Washington will
have to send more.The tax cuts they’ve grown accustomed to over the
last decade will simply expire. Or to put it another way, they’ll
explode.