UPDATE: Senate leaders pessimistic on deal to avert fall from ‘fiscal cliff’
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
The top Senate negotiators on the effort to prevent the government from going over the “fiscal cliff” offered a pessimistic assessment Sunday, barely 24 hours before a deadline to avert tax hikes on virtually every American worker. But negotiations continued, with Vice President Joe Biden taking on a new role.
With the two sides differing on the income threshold for higher tax rates and how to deal with inheritance taxes, among other issues, talks between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared to have broken down. A McConnell spokesman said the Kentucky Republican reached out to Biden, a longtime friend, in hopes of breaking the impasse.
Republicans withdrew a long-discussed proposal to slow future cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients as part of a compromise to avoid the cliff. Democrats said that proposal had put a damper on the talks, and Republican senators emerging from a closed-door GOP meeting said it is no longer part of the equation.
Comments
Say what you want, blame whatever side you want, but the fact that this has come down to the 59th minute of the 11th hour falls right into the lap of the President. Even if anything gets done, it's not done right, or completely. If this were a business, it would be out of business.
@toycannon:
Well said !
No private business would survive a day under the kind of management demonstrated by the US Congress.
It is most unfortunate that meaningful spending reductions appear to be the cause of the delay.
this is absolutely not obamas' fault. he's offered compromises for months only to be rebuffed by the party of no. the teabaggers, the extreme radical right of the repub party will not give obama any success. and boehner and mconell, rather than raise taxes on their rich friends will let them go up on everyong. if they allow us to go over the cliff it could stymie the economy, reduce medicare payments to doctors, reduce benefits for seniors, the poor, and (if you can believe it) disabled vets. if the repubs let this happen they are not patriots, they are traitors to the middle class and the good of the country. in my mind, they should be impeached and even prosecuted. but obama has a plan c. if these morons let us go over the cliff, the president will introduce a bill in congress to reduce taxes on the 98% of the "lower class." this extreme repub partys' days will be numbered.
Papa: Keep drinking the kool-aid. If you think that taxing the "rich" will keep this country afloat you are living in a democratic dream world. We borrow $1 for ever $2 we spend with a deficit (over-spending) of more than $1 trillion per year. How long do you think we can sustain our reckless spending? This president still has not proposed spending cuts. All he has is "tax the rich" "tax the rich". He has not passed a budget in 3 years. In May, the house presented the budget, the senate (democrat majority) sat on it. Obama wants more money to spend and the debt ceiling to increase.
Taxing the rich will fund our spending for about a week. How about going after 18 billion or more in wasteful spending. Can you say "GSA"?
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/201...
@toycannon you are absolutly right very poor presidential leadership...
Lets get serious. Cut expenditures. Where do we start?
Government pensions
US President $180,000 per year for life, House & Senate $174,000 for life, .Speaker of House $223,000 for life, majority/ minority leaders $193,400 or life. They will not get any increase in salary or pension until March 2013. HOW SAD.
Compare this with a teachers average salary $40,065 or a service man in Afghanistan an average of $38,000 per year.
Lets put these elected Reps and Senators on a Fixed per diem salary for each day they are in session and are actually present.
And finally make their salary subjected to FICA taxes like the rest of us.