Fiscal Cliff ‘Simply Not Going to Happen’: Sen. Corker
The fiscal cliff — the $600 billion of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts due at the end of this year — is "simply not going to happen", Sen. Bob Corker told CNBC.
"The debt ceiling today is more important than the fiscal cliff issue because the fiscal cliff is not going to happen. It is just simply not going to happen," said the Republican senator for Tennessee, who is a member of the Senate Banking Committee.
The debt ceiling refers to the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow to pay its bills. In September, ratings agency Moody's Investors Service warned the U.S. could lose its triple-A credit rating if its debt burden does not decrease.
Corker told CNBC that markets will "take off" if the government makes progress in tackling debt levels this December.
"The focus ought to be on solvency, and if we can take a big step towards solving that during this December, I think the markets are going to take off. And from an outside perspective, things are undervalued if we do that," he said.
Ken Kamen, president of Mercadien Asset Management, said on Tuesday that investors should position for a market rally on the resolution of the fiscal cliff problem.
"I am very optimistic that while we will have some gyration and pain in the short-run, maybe for the next three-to-six months, we are going to start moving towards an end-game," Kamen told CNBC. "That is what investors should position for."
Kamen said President Barack Obama's re-election will aid the quick resolution of the fiscal cliff. (Read More: Obama Looks to Rally Public Support for Fiscal Deal.)
"If we had got an entire change in Washington, we would have spent the next six to eight months litigating what reform should look like, and what we should be doing. In some ways there is a silver lining to the election, because it released the deadlines in getting these types of things done," he said.
Kamen added that turmoil in the euro zone would not put a dampener on a U.S. market rally.
"Europe is going to work through its issues over time. Whether it is Greece, whether it is Portugal — we can go down the list — they are grinding through a solution," he said.
—By CNBC.com's Katy Barnato
