Fiscal cliff action to come Sunday … maybe
Harry Reid returns to his office Friday after White House meeting (The New York Times/T.J. Kirkpatrick)
The United States Senate has the ball in its hands.
This afternoon’s White House fiscal cliff summit appears to have generated some movement toward a deal, with just more than 72 hours to go. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell both took the floor afterwards in an unusually conciliatory manner, pledging to work with their staffs to come up with a plan that can pass both Houses of Congress. Reid said “we’ll see what we can come up with.” McConnell said he was “hopeful and confident” that both sides will have a deal to take to their conferences shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday. The words were noncommittal, but the tone was a vast improvement over the deep freeze of recent days.
That would likely be a short-term deal. President Barack Obama did not present a new plan at the meeting — a fact that, once leaked, caused a stock market dip — and told reporters this evening that he was “modestly optimistic:”
I’m optimistic we may be able to reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time. Sens. Reid and McConnell are working on such an agreement as we speak. If an agreement isn’t reached in time between Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell I will urge Sen. Reid to bring to the floor a basic package for an up-or-down vote. … The American people are watching what we do here. Obviously their patience is already thin. This is déjà vu all over again.
House Speaker John Boehner also showed some wiggle room here. Democrats’ primary fear is that they go out on a limb on taxes and spending, and then the House does not bother to take it up. Boehner’s failure to whip votes on his “Plan B” did not inspire confidence across the hall. But with help from Democrats, Boehner can shepherd something to passage — it just might not be what the conservative base of his caucus likes. Here’s what a Boehner aide had to say after the White House meeting:
The Speaker told the President that if the Senate amends the House-passed legislation and sends back a plan, the House will consider it – either by accepting or amending. The group agreed that the next step should be the Senate taking bipartisan action.
This is a significant signal to the Senate that any Reid-McConnell accord would make it to the House floor. The details, as always, remain up in the air.
- By Daniel Malloy, Political Insider
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407 comments Add your comment
Real Athens
December 29th, 2012
12:34 pm
For the soldier -
“All laws in the United States begin as bills. Before a bill can become a law, it must be approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the President.”
http://kids.clerk.house.gov/grade-school/lesson.html?intID=17
The last filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and house ended in 1979
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/28/a-look-back-at-the-last-filibuster-proof-majority-in-the-senate/
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
12:35 pm
If you filibuster every bill in the Senate even your own trying to make Obama a one-term President, talk to McConnell not Reed. If you can’t even get your own bill out of a caucus, talk to Boehner, not Pelosi. If you hate the public option in Obamacare, talk to the Heritage Foundation, not Obama. If you figure that Bush was a take-charge President, talk to Cheney, not Biden.
Dusty
December 29th, 2012
12:36 pm
clem,
I read your Hufffinton report. The financial industry of our country has had its problems but it is only one part of the great business world of our country. You see, I do not expect every successful business in this country to be crooked. It is not true.
Try and change your outlook and start by not reading Huffington, a place determined to give bad news.
honested
December 29th, 2012
12:38 pm
voter,
So you are willing to ignore the consistent and rapacious military excesses while picking at the margins?
More taxes are absolutely necessary. The fiscal problems we are currently experiencing did not begin until we embarked on a massively failed experiment in tax cutting.
Accept the failure and return to revenue sanity.
I don’t care how much the top 2% spend to fend it off. Remember, they have the most to lose if the republic fails!
Voter
December 29th, 2012
12:43 pm
@honested – You’re wrong. Why are you so against the military? They are the reason you are here. More taxes is not the answer. They have enough coming in. Spending cuts are essential. Repeat. Spending cuts are essential.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
12:46 pm
@honested – “The fiscal problems we are currently experiencing did not begin until we embarked on a massively failed experiment in tax cutting.”
Wrong again. The government has been increasing the National debt for decades. It wasn’t til hussein obama that we saw 5+ trillion increases.
I last heard the government had 5 billion coming in a day and 6 billion going out. That has to stop!
td
December 29th, 2012
12:48 pm
honested
December 29th, 2012
12:38 pm
Remember that fairness of tax increases are only adding $80 a year to our $21,000 a year income. How are we going to payoff our $142,000 in debt.
honested
December 29th, 2012
12:48 pm
voter,
I’m not against the military, I’m against wasteful military expenditure.
You might remember, it was the same moron in the White House who both enacted the failed tax cut experiment AND committed our military to a failed, three trillion dollar exercise in Iraq that had no reason, no purpose and no benefit. But we still have the 3 trillion dollar bill to pay!
We are nearing the end of our failed, decade plus excursion into Afghanistan (taking our place among the ‘arrogant powers’ who fail to learn from one another’s lesson).
Military adventurism is not an effective tool for foreign policy. Until their resources are strictly limited, the nonsense fear that promotes the use of this excessively expensive bludgeon will continue to starve the American Public.
Real Athens
December 29th, 2012
12:51 pm
Household budgets and a nation’s budgets aren’t in the same ballpark, hell, they’re not even the same game. The same goes with the tired old adage that “government should be run like a business”
“One of the most important concepts to be taught in economics is the notion of the fallacy of composition: what might be true for individuals is probably not true for society as a whole. The most common example is the paradox of thrift: while an individual can save more by reducing spending (on consumption), society can save more only by spending more (for example, on investment).”
http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/pn/pn0601.htm
honested
December 29th, 2012
12:52 pm
voter,
You must have had some sort of blackout in 2000-2001.
Our budget was in balance (mostly due to adequate revenue) and we were actually REDUCING the PRINCIPAL of our DEBT.
Alan Greenspan was concerned that paying down the debt would be ‘detrimental to the financial markets’. This argument was used to sell the miserable failure tax cut policy.
Obviously, greenspan, shrub and the administration at the time was dead wrong.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
12:52 pm
@honested – “three trillion dollar exercise in Iraq that had no reason”
How about Saddam Hussein? Also, Congress, both sides agreed to that. Remember that episode on 9/11 in New York, The Pentagon and the downed plane in Pennsylvania? We were responding to an attack. What did you want to do? Talk to them, plea to the United Nations for sanctions? Get real.
td
December 29th, 2012
12:54 pm
honested
December 29th, 2012
12:48 pm
voter,
“You might remember, it was the same moron in the White House who both enacted the failed tax cut experiment”
False argument. The tax cut you are talking about is equivalent of taking $80 to $120 per year out of out $38,000 per year in spending. You argument does not hold up to the most basic logic.
Oh how they cry
December 29th, 2012
12:54 pm
Except for her waistline and bottom getting bigger due to lack of exercise and healthy eating, nothing has changed with Dusty’s clown shtick since her emotional tirades and clown performances at Bookman’s blog.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
12:55 pm
@honested – We weren’t talking about budgets, we were talking about debt. Spending more than we are taking in. Stop changing the issue.
tireofit
December 29th, 2012
12:55 pm
How about Saddam Hussein?
++
What about him?
honested
December 29th, 2012
12:55 pm
voter,
I don’t care about saddam hussein and killing him was not worth three trillion dollars.
Congress was duped.
9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq.
The Afghan incursion should have ended in 6-9 months and probably would have had the Iraqi War of Choice not got in the way and the troops not been called back in Tora-Bora.
Remember?
Voter
December 29th, 2012
12:56 pm
@oh how they cry – again with the name calling. How ’bout some facts? Anyone can call people names. Make sense or go to CNN’s blog.
honested
December 29th, 2012
12:57 pm
I do believe there is a tiny dog nipping at my ankles and yipping the same dishonest prattle as usual.
tell the truth
December 29th, 2012
12:58 pm
Voter thank you for that- that was my point- that Obama did not have the 60 votes for his first two years in spite of your crowd continuing to parrot that line
Voter
December 29th, 2012
12:59 pm
@honested – “9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq”
Really? Sad. You’re not even making sense. Who do you think was helping the terrorists finacially and otherewise? Man! You’re not even on the same page much less the same planet.
Real Athens
December 29th, 2012
12:59 pm
“The financial industry of our country has had its problems but it is only one part of the great business world of our country.”
True. But not so true.
“Since the financial industry provides rewards to employees and shareholders that are well in excess of the human value it produces (even considering its role as an intermediary delivering financial capital to the real economy, and its resulting second-hand contribution to delivering things that humans value), both financial and human capital are diverted away from the real economy that produces stuff we want. … Did Wall Street deliver 35% or 45% of the human value of all American businesses in the 2000s? That was the “financial services” share of business profits — the reward received for value created. (I’ve seen some variance in this number, but 34% is the lowest number I’ve seen.)
Whereas the financial sector claimed less than 15 percent of total U.S. corporate profits in the 1950s and 1960s, its share grew to 25 percent in the 1990s and 34 percent in the most recent decade through 2008. “—Testimony by Sheila Bair, January 14, 2010.
http://www.businessinsider.com/too-big-to-fail-wall-street-and-main-street-how-big-are-they-2011-3#ixzz2GSsXR0zX
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
12:59 pm
When you have a so-called budget guru who couldn’t even carry is home town or county as a vice presidential candidate, you need to talk to Ryan. By the way, we haven’t heard a word from his since a couple of days after the election have we?
Oh how they cry
December 29th, 2012
1:00 pm
Voter
You don’t run this blog… Take it up with the AJC
Voter
December 29th, 2012
1:00 pm
@honested – Let’s not get distracted. Back to taxes vs spending cuts.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
1:01 pm
@Real Athens – Are you attending a business/economy class or did you just graduate from College?
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:02 pm
voter,
I’m certainly not changing the subject.
I just won’t participate in pretending there is a method to solve the problem without adequate revenue.
We had adequate revenue in 2001, but we cut that revenue dramatically for dubious reasons that were proven to be incorrect.
It is time to admit the failure of that fiscal failure and return to normal.
I don’t care what they told you on talk radio.
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
1:02 pm
If you cry for keeping tax cuts, but decry that the amount is really small, you are a Dixiecan. When you don’t know that Social Security solvency and the budget deficit/debt are two different policy items, you are a Dixiecan.
td
December 29th, 2012
1:02 pm
Real Athens
December 29th, 2012
12:51 pm
If you believe in the failed keynesian economics theory about government. It is a proven failed theory that has crushed the Soviet union and now is crushing all the economies of Europe and even us. The more limited the governments role the better for the people.
Oh how they cry
December 29th, 2012
1:03 pm
There is going to be a deal with both taxes and spending cuts
Count on it. Deal may or may not be good. Both sides will cry, yet claim victory
Nothing new in DC
Voter
December 29th, 2012
1:05 pm
@td – The more limited the governments role the better for the people.
Amen! Well said!
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:05 pm
voter,
I haven’t left the issue.
Raise taxes.
Cut military spending 50%.
Where is there any change?
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
1:06 pm
The role of government is to protect those who think they are smart and those who are not, from those who are simply crooks.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
1:07 pm
@oh how they cry – I agree. The deal won’t make either side happy. That is the problem with our current Government, pass the buck, delay. We need new blood in Congress, to fix the issues or we are going to end up like Europe and all the other failed economic countries.
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:07 pm
That tiny dog is so delusional it thinks that Keynsianism had something to do with the Soviet Union.
It must not know that excessive military expenditure (along with a bloated plutocracy within the party) is what did the Soviet Union in.
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
1:08 pm
If keep taxes the same, eliminate all domestic spending and cut military spending by 50%, we would be a breakeven. Now let’s debate the Ryan-Romney Plan.
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:09 pm
voter,
Now there is one place we agree.
Replacing the likes of broun, gingrey, price, westmoreland, woodall, austin scott, kingston, and even the newbie wrong wingers from Georgia would definitely be a good start!
Voter
December 29th, 2012
1:09 pm
@honested – No change for you. No new taxes and cuts across the board plus spending cuts. I have no problem with cuts to the military but equal to the cuts to ALL government agency’s.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
1:11 pm
@honested – Not just Georgia, all States. It’s time for Congress and our Government to be revamped.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
1:12 pm
Lunch time – I’ll be back. lol
Oh how they cry
December 29th, 2012
1:12 pm
Don’t be surprised if a deal or at least a temporary deal is cut today if not tomorrow.
The leaders of each party will pose together and cheer on their “great work”.
To placate their “flocks” they will then hit the news/entertainment shows to blame the other side.
Just like cheesy reality tv…
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:12 pm
voter,
They aren’t NEW taxes.
They are just the same OLD taxes that were cut for artificial, ideological reasons that did NOT work.
THEY MUST BE RESTORED for fiscal health and economic growth.
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
1:14 pm
Please put emphasis on the Plutocracy. Dixiecans fail to realize that their leaders bow to the Plutocrats who play for a living rather than those who actually create jobs and make businesses grow organically. One reason Romney and Ryan lost because they couldn’t show that they directly created any jobs with their Bush/Boehner/McConnell tax cuts.
Get Real
December 29th, 2012
1:23 pm
Wow, posting has really taken off this morning….raise taxes, it will have a negligible effect on overall government revenue as it will be like throwing a brick in the Grand Canyon of debt. Until you talk about entitlement reform, everyone is kidding themselves and are clearly not seriously about debt reduction. Even Obama has stated that………
td
December 29th, 2012
1:23 pm
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:12 pm
voter,
They aren’t NEW taxes.
They are just the same OLD taxes that were cut for artificial, ideological reasons that did NOT work.
THEY MUST BE RESTORED for fiscal health and economic growth.
How is $80 per year going to give us fiscal health when we already spend $16,500 more per year then we bring in now?
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:27 pm
get real,
Social Security and Medicare are separate issues funded by a separate pool and have no place in the general revenue and expenditure discussion.
For ‘entitlements’, simply raise the artificial ‘cap’ on payroll taxes to at least 250k if not eliminating it entirely. The ‘entitlement’ problem is solved, FOREVER.
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:28 pm
There it is with false math again.
yip, yip, yip.
Get Real
December 29th, 2012
1:31 pm
honested, explain to me how that is going to balance a trillion dollar plus deficit budget? What you propose will not solve the problem with SS as now with baby boomers beginning the huge draw down, much more is being taken out than is going in and it is only going to get worse
honested
December 29th, 2012
1:34 pm
The general revenue increase is necessary to pay back the ‘trust fund’ for the money already inappropriately redirected.
The 941/payroll tax changes are necessary to deal with the future.
Do you have any concept of how this works?
Real Athens
December 29th, 2012
1:35 pm
Voter:
If you must ask I just returned from China, where I was conducting business and looking into moving a small manufacturer to North America.
What’s going on at mom’s house today?
td, lms, or whomever to equate Keynesian macroeconomic theory with communism shows you weren’t listening in Newt’s revisionist history classes
Politico
December 29th, 2012
1:38 pm
Get Real
Wingfield regulars, especially those banned at Bookman’s for acting like like babies, need somewhere to blog. With Wingfield closing his blog, Galloway’s it is