While Re­pub­li­cans in the Unit­ed States have been the most out­spo­ken in call­ing for spend­ing cuts and rode a deficit-cut­ting ral­ly­ing cry to big gains in No­vem­ber elec­tions, they have so far backed away from pledges to slash spend­ing.Lip­sky praised a pro­pos­al by a US pres­i­den­tial com­mis­sion to trim the deficit with a ma­jor tax code over­haul and deep spend­ing cuts. Al­though the plan was con­tro­ver­sial, it gar­nered more po­lit­i­cal sup­port than ex­pect­ed.How­ev­er, the com­mis­sion has still lacked suf­fi­cient back­ing to force con­gres­sion­al ac­tion, and there is lit­tle ex­pec­ta­tion that tax over­haul will take place this year. (Reuters)