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
Voter
December 29th, 2012
3:43 pm
@Curious – “His loss to Obama should be and is the equivalent of a shell-lacking”
I understand that line of thought but that has to do with more of the moral fiber of the Country. Morally and ethically we are headed in the wrong direction. This past election proved it.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
3:45 pm
@td – good points. Also remember what Chris Matthews said: Thank God for Hurricane Sandy!
Only the morally bankrupted would say that.
tireofit
December 29th, 2012
3:45 pm
Morally and ethically we are headed in the wrong direction.
++
Yes we are the country of greed and war and karma is going to pay us a major visit.
tell the truth
December 29th, 2012
4:08 pm
We are headed in the wrong direction because you lost big-time again at the polls? That sounds rather sanctimonious to me. Maybe you are the one headed in the wrong direction. Maybe you are looking at unlimited lost elections in your future. Would that ruin your day Bunky?
tell the truth
December 29th, 2012
4:13 pm
td still playing that game about not doing one particular thing because it will not solve all the woes? Really quite comical- but sad that you continue to play that silly card. If you do all the little singular items then the total outcome will have a definite affect on balancing the budget. Please dear god use your head one time in your life and stop with the useless bumper sticker slogans.
td
December 29th, 2012
4:19 pm
tell the truth
December 29th, 2012
4:13 pm
I see you have not been blessed with reading comprehension skills. I said we should adopt the Penny/Mack plan. Then after the six years are up we can consider raising taxes to pay off the debt.
tireofit
December 29th, 2012
4:26 pm
It doesn’t seem that the voters supported the Penny/Mack plan.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
4:28 pm
@tell the truth – “because you lost big-time again at the polls? ”
Get past it. We’re talking about Government spending being out of control vs more taxes. 16+ trillion in debt, yearly deficits of 1+ trillion. THESE ARE FACTS!!!!!!!!!! Stay on subject
Voter
December 29th, 2012
4:31 pm
@tireofit – “It doesn’t seem that the voters supported the Penny/Mack plan.”
What voters, this is a plan being discussed by Congressman. Voters no longer have a say.
td
December 29th, 2012
4:36 pm
tireofit
December 29th, 2012
4:26 pm
It doesn’t seem that the voters supported the Penny/Mack plan
I bet very few voters know about the Penny/Mack plan. Although most polls do state the overwhelming majority of voters support cutting spending.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
4:42 pm
@tireofit – Again Civics Class 101 – We as voters vote in our Senators and Congressman, once they are in office they vote or don’t vote for bills. We can write them and tell them our opinion, maybe tell them we don’t want them to vote or to vote but ultimately we have no control until election time comes around.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 29th, 2012
4:42 pm
I can imagine a liberal clutching their pillow over the sight of many things but now it’s Grover Norquist?
It doesn’t take much to frighten these fools.
tireofit
December 29th, 2012
4:44 pm
“We can write them and tell them our opinion, maybe tell them we don’t want them to vote or to vote but ultimately we have no control until election time comes around.”
++
Mack lost and so did his plan.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
4:46 pm
@tireofit – “Mack lost and so did his plan”
That doesn’t mean they can’t discuss the merits and ideas and formulate a new bill. Man! Take a civics class or something!
honested
December 29th, 2012
4:58 pm
mack’s ‘plan’ was more bogus ideology and almost zero substance.
I’m sorry you conserrrrrrrrvative’s imaginary deities prevent you from accepting tax increases, but hey you lost so suck it up.
I don’t expect you to stop whining, just stop being the major impediment to progress.
We had 8 years of an uninterrupted ‘laffer curve’ experiment, and it was a dismal failure.
Why on earth would anyone for a second believe that continuing the failed experiment would have any difference whatsoever in result?
td
December 29th, 2012
5:00 pm
tireofit
December 29th, 2012
4:44 pm
“We can write them and tell them our opinion, maybe tell them we don’t want them to vote or to vote but ultimately we have no control until election time comes around.”
++
Mack lost and so did his plan.
Wrong Mack look up the bill and see which Mack is the author.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
5:04 pm
@honested – “We had 8 years of an uninterrupted ‘laffer curve’ experiment, and it was a dismal failure.”
I think you mean the past 4 years with 4 more to come.
td
December 29th, 2012
5:05 pm
honested
December 29th, 2012
4:58 pm
“mack’s ‘plan’ was more bogus ideology and almost zero substance.”
So freezing the Federal Budget and cutting 1% across the board for 6 years is “bogus ideology”? Sounds like common sense to me. What is bogus ideology is to think raising taxes on the rich will resolve our nations problem. $80 billion per year that is going to do nothing to solve our deficit or debt crisis is the pie in the sky dreams of the uninformed.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
5:07 pm
@td – Well said.
honested
December 29th, 2012
5:25 pm
Do I hear that tiny dog yipping about ‘common sense’?
1% of the military budget is a rounding error and points out republicklan cowardice.
Lets find out how fast things improve once appropriate revenue is returned.
We can only hope it resolves the problem as fast as grossly inadequate revenue caused it.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
5:29 pm
@honested – “Lets find out how fast things improve once appropriate revenue is returned”
Appropriate revenue is down because of job loss, not taxes. Again, taxing is not the answer. Spending cuts have to be mandatory.
td
December 29th, 2012
5:34 pm
honested
December 29th, 2012
5:25 pm
Do I hear that tiny dog yipping about ‘common sense’?
1% of the military budget is a rounding error and points out republicklan cowardice.
Lets find out how fast things improve once appropriate revenue is returned.
We can only hope it resolves the problem as fast as grossly inadequate revenue caused it.
Are you a complete moron? It has been proven over and over again that going back to the Clinton era tax rates on people making over $250,000 per year will do absolutely nothing to balance a budget or to pay down our debt. It is nothing more then a FEEL GOOD exercise so that the left can feel better about their circumstance. Heck, Obama’s proposed spending increases on “lifetime” unemployment will eat up most of the tax increase.
Come to the table with something real and not what makes you feel better and then you may be believable, until then you just look like another uninformed Obama voter.
yuzeyurbrane
December 29th, 2012
5:38 pm
td–your conclusions re govt. spending increase are all wet. In the last 20 years, the Federal govt. has reduced its workforce dramatically while state govts., including Georgia, have increased equally dramatically. Nothing against your wife and daughter working for the state and you using your wife’s health insurance, but Georgia state employees have only started to have employment and benefit cutbacks the last 10 years at most. Of course, you are probably the biggest hypocrite on this blog because of that but no one should be surprised.
honested
December 29th, 2012
5:41 pm
tiny dog,
I realize that your ‘position’ has been repeated on talk radio and wrong wing blogs.
Big whup.
It does not change the fact that adequate revenue is necessary. I would just as soon increase ALL Federal Income Taxes on EVERYBODY. We all share some responsibility for allowing the disaster wrought by the shrub administration. I would like to see the top marginal rate restored to at least 42%, no matter who whines or how loud.
Now tell me what good a ‘1% cut’ on rapacious military waste would do?
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
5:43 pm
1. The reason why Obama won is because his numbers were not as bad as Karl Rove and Fox News claimed, and Romney/Ryan and the GOP were much…much…much worse. Don’t thinks so? Who won and by how much? 2. Saying that Obama is the worst President belies to open acknowledgement by even Dixiecans that George W. Bush set such a low bar that Harding and Hoover now look like they were great. 3. Just think, Bush would still be in two wars and would have driven the country into the wrong fiscal cliff in reverse, because Boehner and McConnell were (and still are) still digging in the canyon.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
5:44 pm
@yuzeyurbrane – I hate to burst your bubble but the Federal Gov’t has not been reduced. Not only that this Gov’t is spending more per year than ever before and it’s not all on the military. It’s entitlements like welfare, food stamps, worthless stimulus to companies who are now filing bankruptcy, now health care. Watch out.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
5:46 pm
@Attack Dog – You need help, meds maybe.
tireofit
December 29th, 2012
5:48 pm
“It’s entitlements like welfare, food stamps, worthless stimulus to companies who are now filing bankruptcy, now health care.
++
I would rather we spend it on “us” than wasting more on the mooching military industrial complex.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
5:50 pm
@tireofit – Do you have children? Would you rather keep paying their allowance or means of living or would you rather help them get a job and become self-supportive?
Voter
December 29th, 2012
5:52 pm
@tireofit – “I would rather we spend it on “us”
That kind of thinking is what has destroyed Europe and others. Socialism does not work. History has shown it doesn’t.
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
5:55 pm
You would think that the Dixiecans would be praising the fiscal cliff that they caused by self inflicted digging. It is exactly what they did during the Civil War. Run up debt on unnecessary military conflict, exploit the poor, town folks, minorities, and women, while the Pluto-Aristocrats sat on thumbs and refused to pay taxes. Does anyone remember the Blue Dog Democrats coming on C-Span nightly in an empty House chamber, talking about the annual deficit and their federal debt chart?
yuzeyurbrane
December 29th, 2012
5:59 pm
Voter—you are comparing apples and oranges. My comment was in response to comments by td re size of Federal govt. workforce compared to “efficient” state govt. workforce, in particular the State of Georgia for whom both his wife and daughter work. The Federal budget is composed of things besides civilian workforce as you pointed out: pretty much fixed items like the military, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and relatively small expenditures on other discretionary departments. Social Security, while frequently cited by the misinformed as being an entitlement is not even calculated as part of the budget because it is self-financing, at least for the next 20 years. Essentially, folks are getting back what they paid into it with their FICA taxes, like a fixed annuity. Hardly the the vision of an entitlement which your words suggest. At any rate, I suggest you google Federal employment and you will see that workforce size comments I made are pretty accurate.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
6:00 pm
@Attack Dog – “You would think that the Dixiecans would be praising the fiscal cliff that they caused by self inflicted digging.”
There is no “Fiscal Cliff”. Media created it. The Budget Control Act of 2011 was passed by the House and Senate and signed by president hussein obama. If he disagreed with it, why did he sign it?
Voter
December 29th, 2012
6:01 pm
@yuzeyurbrane – I’ve seen the numbers. I’m correct. All government,(including the military) has grown under obama. Not to mention the Czars and their staff.
td
December 29th, 2012
6:07 pm
honested
December 29th, 2012
5:41 pm
That is 1% per year for 6 years. You really should read the plan.
” I would just as soon increase ALL Federal Income Taxes on EVERYBODY. We all share some responsibility for allowing the disaster wrought by the shrub administration. I would like to see the top marginal rate restored to at least 42%, no matter who whines or how loud.”
We know you are a true socialist and want full redistribution of wealth though the almighty government.
“It does not change the fact that adequate revenue is necessary.”
Adequate for what? To make sure all the people that do not want to work, that do not want an education and do not want to take the responsibility of taking care of themselves to be given a good living from taking from others?
Voter
December 29th, 2012
6:08 pm
@yuzeyurbrane – “Essentially, folks are getting back what they paid into it with their FICA taxes, like a fixed annuity.”
Dream on. The Gov’t. has been robbing from this fund for years and most people who are now in their 40’s and 50’s will never see it when they turn 62-70. The numbers don’t lie, they say this fund will be broke by 2027, some say sonner.
Voter
December 29th, 2012
6:09 pm
Sooner
td
December 29th, 2012
6:10 pm
yuzeyurbrane
December 29th, 2012
5:59 pm
You just make up crap as you go. My daughter is 12. What other junk have you made up? Oops looks like Voter has already called you out.
td
December 29th, 2012
6:18 pm
yuzeyurbrane
December 29th, 2012
5:59 pm
” Essentially, folks are getting back what they paid into it with their FICA taxes, like a fixed annuity. Hardly the the vision of an entitlement which your words suggest.”
While I agree that FICA is an insurance policy that people pay into and should get their money back. the facts are that most people get back more then they put into the system because we live longer. We also give out SSI to many millions that have paid nothing into the system and give survivors benefits to many more children that have paid nothing into the system.
“The answer largely depends on when you retire and how much you’ve earned over your lifetime. Consider a single man who earns the average wage throughout his career ($43,100 in 2010 dollars), works every year from age 22 to 64, and then retires at age 65 in 2010. Over his lifetime he has paid $345,000 into the system. But he is likely to get back $72,000 more than that, or $417,000 in Social Security and Medicare payouts, according to recent Urban Institute calculations. A single women with the same work and tax history will come out even further ahead due to her longer life expectancy, likely netting $464,000 in lifetime benefits, which is $192,000 more than she paid into the system. These amounts are in constant 2010 dollars and assume a 2 percent real interest rate.”
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2011/01/06/will-you-get-back-your-social-security-taxes-in-retirement
Shine
December 29th, 2012
6:20 pm
Well I see the kooks have been on their period all day. Bad Obama, bad baby, bad. The polls say the people, even the one’s who voted for the Republican Romney/Ryan kook ticket, support the president on his tax plan etc.
I just love you conservative weirdoes. Thanks for all you are doing for the democratic party.
clem
December 29th, 2012
6:23 pm
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/oct/24/bill-nelson/bill-nelson-says-connie-macks-penny-plan-would-lea/
Shine
December 29th, 2012
6:27 pm
Voter Voter Voter…you know the election for president and senate was supposed to settle it. If Romney won then he would claim a mandate for some kook plan for more tax cuts for the wealthy etc and they actually expected to win the presidency and the senate.
But the lies of Fox News etc could not keep reality from crashing down. Obama won, the dems picked up seats in the House and Senate, and votes for congressional races were more for dems than for pubs. If distrcits were gerrymandered to reflect the election results, Democrats would control the House by a couple of seats.
No body likes whiners and sore losers.
td
December 29th, 2012
6:28 pm
clem
December 29th, 2012
6:23 pm
And? Those are the types of cuts we are going to have to have to balance the budget and get out of debt. The credit card is maxed out and we will have to pay the piper sooner then later. Being in denial is a excuse of the lame.
Attack Dog
December 29th, 2012
6:30 pm
Going over the fiscal cliff and being one of the worst Presidents, William Henry Harrison was in office for only 30-days and had a great-great grandson who became the Executive Director of the NAACP, was not as bad as Bush in the eyes of even Dixiecans. Outing Obama is like telling the life guard who saved their sorry butt who couldn’t swim, that he should have gotten to them faster.
double
December 29th, 2012
6:31 pm
Yep we attacked a country we gave our ok, to invade kuwait.Google/search April Glaspie.International Inspectors could find no wmd’s.When he left the kindergarten class that was probably to call pappa Bush asking what should he do.Reckon the gassed Kurds more dead than all we killed with cluster bombs?
Shine
December 29th, 2012
6:32 pm
But Td, when GDP picks up we can borrow more just like you implying military spending compared to GDP is too low, right you kook you?
clem
December 29th, 2012
6:40 pm
it was provided as info; i agree we need to make cuts and raise revenues (bush tax cuts should never have happened as they did). there are lots of things that could be done….everyone needs some skin in game, but by the same token we should not be in a rush to the bottom of the economic pie distribution either.
but off to dinner.
Shine
December 29th, 2012
7:01 pm
The Bush tax cuts passed in the first place because black whining nutjobs were demanding “slave reperations” now ” that we could afford it”. Well now we can afford nothing. the black whiners pretty much ruined the democratic party in the south just as the dont tax the rich republican whiners are damaging the GOP nationwide.
double
December 29th, 2012
7:07 pm
Subliminal message vote for Obama .Real message Obama won,Factual message Obama 4 more years.
Rabbit
December 29th, 2012
7:10 pm
“”I keep seeing articles about the ‘fiscal cliff’ that do, in fact, describe it — often in the headline — as a debt crisis. But it isn’t… No, what we’re having is a political crisis, born of the fact that one of our two great political parties has reached the end of a 30-year road. The modern Republican Party’s grand, radical agenda lies in ruins — but the party doesn’t know how to deal with that failure, and it retains enough power to do immense damage as it strikes out in frustration.” Paul Krugman