Spending cuts must accompany revenue increases in any deal Congress puts together to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff scheduled to unfold at the beginning of the new year, the president of the Business Roundtable said.

“It can’t be revenue now, spending reductions later,” John Engler, a former Republican governor of Michigan, said Tuesday at a Bloomberg Government conference in Washington. “This country has enormous growth potential, but we’ve got to clear out this fog of uncertainty” for businesses, he said.

President Barack Obama and Congress are trying to negotiate a deficit-reducing compromise that would avoid more than $600 billion in tax increases and federal spending cuts — known as the fiscal cliff — that are scheduled to start taking effect in the new year.

“Just get it done,” Engler said of the negotiations.

The Business Roundtable is a group of chief executive officers from companies including Boeing Co. and General Electric Co.