As current congressional leaders were involved in negotiations to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” former congressional leaders and governmental officials, journalists, and academics talked about lessons current leaders could learn from the 1990 deficit agreement that eventually helped bring the federal budget into surplus. 
“Fiscal cliff” referred to impending tax increases and sequestration budget cuts at the end of 2012 if Congress failed to reach a new budget agreement.*"Sequestration," a legal procedure in which automatic budget cuts are triggered, was agreed to in the Budget Control Act of 2011.