US President Barack Obama and Republicans have sealed a budget deal to avert the fiscal cliff that would prevent a middle-class tax hike from hitting 98 percent of Americans.A senior White House official said in Washington ,the deal also delays for two months part of the 109 billion US Dollars in spending cuts. The House of Representatives is due to consider the bill later. It needs the approval of both houses to become law.Congress missed the deadline to approve it, but Tuesday is a US public holiday and no immediate effects will be felt. Tax cuts passed during the Presidency of George W Bush formally expired at midnight. But the deal extends the tax cuts for Americans earning under 400,000 dollars – up from the 250,000 dollars level Democrats had originally sought. A huge spending cut known as the sequester – that would see 1.2 trillion dollar cut from the federal budget over 10 years – has been deferred for two months, allowing Congress and the White House to reopen negotiations on a wider deal.Senators were waiting for the final score from the bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which would prevent tax hikes on most of the Americans and put off for two months spending cuts scheduled by the sequester.Congressional Budget Office, in a report, had predicted that fiscal cliff could dampen economic growth by 0. 5 percent. That could tip the US economy into a recession and driving unemployment from its current 7.7 percent back over nine per cent, the non-partisan CBO estimated.