President Barack Obama has cut short his holiday and was returning to Washington as no deal appeared in sight to avoid the year-end "fiscal cliff" of higher taxes and deep spending cuts that could spin the still-fragile economy back into a recession.<br /><br />The US treasury secretary warned on Thursday that the government would hit its borrowing limit on Monday, the final day of the year.<br /><br />Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports from Washington D.C.
