(Image source: The New York Times )     BY ZACH TOOMBS     Congress will fail to meet the deadline it set for itself to avert automatic tax hikes and spending cuts going into effect tomorrow. But the immediate effects of the so-called “fiscal cliff” are not as obvious, or as dire, as its name suggests.   The announcement came down from House leadership around 4:30 eastern time Monday — no vote could be held on a debt reduction deal they didn’t have.   Just an hour earlier, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he and Vice President Joe Biden had reached an agreement on averting tax cuts.   And two hours before that, President Barack Obama turned the focus on avoiding higher taxes for middle-income Americans at a news conference that displayed some misplaced optimism. [Video: ABC ]   Despite agreement on taxes — likely that Americans making $450,000 a year or less would be spared a tax hike — the deal got hung up on how to deal with spending cuts to defense and domestic programs.   An anonymous source told CNN Democrats want to put off those cuts by at least a year.   Although the fiscal cliff has been built up as an economic armageddon, the deadline Congress set for midnight Monday is somewhat arbitrary — it’s not lawmakers’ last chance to avert the vast majority of financial consequences.   Writing for Slate , Matt Yglesisas says yes, we’re going over the cliff, but: “Probably not forever. Probably some deal will pull us partially back in January … If you have [an income of] less than $250,000, the odds are overwhelming that Congress and the White House will soon work out a deal to put your tax rates back down again.”   But the payroll tax holiday — that’s gone. And, as this graph from The Washington Post shows, Americans haven’t had to worry about that tax rate increasing since 1980.   For the 160 million people who pay that tax, expect a paycheck 2 percent smaller come January.