E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSUpdated at 5:00p.m.ET: The United States on Wednesday edged closer to the fiscal cliff as Congress waited for President Barack Obama to return from vacation in Hawaii and make one final attempt to avoid huge tax hikes and spending cuts in the New Year.
In the absence of Obama, there was no sign of either side in Congress making an effort to strike a deal. The corridors of the Capitol building were empty except for an occasional police officer, and members' office doors stayed locked.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner has not yet set a date for bringing House members back to Washington from their Christmas break, an aide of the Republican leader said. That makes the timing of a vote on any budget deal before December 31 more difficult.
The Boehner aide also said there were no plans for new talks between the top Republican in Congress and Obama, who flies overnight and is due back in the White House on Thursday morning.
The inaction notwithstanding, there was still just enough time to prevent a fiscal crunch that would upset global financial markets and likely push the United States into recession.
Reports of lackluster retail holiday sales added to the urgency for a deal. Shoppers might be spending less this holiday season in fear of looming income tax increases. U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday, dragged lower by shares of retail companies.
President Obama and Congress are set to return to Washington to hopefully reach a deal on averting the fiscal cliff before the New Year. Luke Russert and NBC News' Kristen Welker and Mark Murray discuss.
A modest, last-minute measure in Congress to avoid deep spending cuts set for January 1 and most of the tax hikes could pass the Democratic-controlled Senate by the New Year, although Republicans would need to agree not use a procedural roadblock known as a filibuster.
But senators probably would not make the effort unless there was a strong signal from Boehner that the House would find a way to go along.
A Senate Democratic aide downplayed chances for votes this week in the Senate, but suggested there could be legislative movement at the weekend.
"We can't do anything until Republicans either give us the 60 votes," which are needed to advance legislation without long procedural delays, or allow a short-cut that lets bills pass on a simple majority vote in the 100-member chamber.
The focus in Congress is shifting from broad deficit reduction to narrower efforts to avert the immediate shock of the December 31 cliff dive.
"This is the (emergency) scenario that we have long believed would rise in probability the closer we go to December 31, which essentially calls for extending all the rates for those individuals making under $200K and households under $250K and does not address the debt ceiling or the deficit," analyst Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Securities wrote in a research note.
Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who is retiring at year's end, told MSNBC that $250,000 "is too low of a threshold" for raising income taxes.
She said that in conversations she has had with some Senate Democrats, "they are saying maybe more in the $400,000 to $500,000 category."
Obama himself recently offered to raise the threshold to $400,000, before negotiations with Boehner broke off.
Clock ticking
But even if a handful of Senate Republicans support Democrats on a measure to avoid the worst of the fiscal cliff, time is short.
When the Senate returns on Thursday it is due to work on a disaster aid bill to help New York and New Jersey recover from Superstorm Sandy and other measures.
Recommended: GOP willing to bend on issues after election
In the Republican-controlled House, any bill that raises taxes on anyone would need a rare bipartisan vote to win approval.
All 191 Democrats might have to team up with at least 26 Republicans to get a majority if the bill included tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans, as Obama is demanding.
Some of those votes could conceivably come from among the 34 Republican members who are either retiring or were defeated in the November elections and no longer have to worry about the political fallout.
An alternative is for Congress to let income taxes go up on everyone as scheduled. Then, during the first week of January, lawmakers would strike a quick deal to reduce them except on people in the highest brackets.
They would also pass a measure putting off the $109 billion in automatic spending cuts that most lawmakers want to avoid.
Once the clock ticks past midnight on December 31, no member of Congress would have to vote for a tax increase on anyone - taxes would have risen automatically - and the only votes would be to decrease tax rates for most Americans back to their 2012 levels.
Americans' optimism that Obama and congressional leaders will reach a budget agreement before January 1 has waned in recent days, according to a Gallup poll.
President Obama is cutting his Hawaiian vacation short and heading back to Washington just a day after Christmas. Meanwhile, Congress returns tomorrow with just days left to reach a deal before the looming January 1 fiscal cliff. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.
Fifty percent believe a deal will be reached, a drop of 7 percentage points from the previous week, and 48 percent are doubtful. The poll was taken just after talks ran into trouble last week.
Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz is urging workers in the company's roughly 120 Washington-area coffee shops to write "come together" on customers' cups on Thursday and Friday to send a message to politicians.
"We're paying attention, we're greatly disappointed in what's going on and we deserve better," Schultz told Reuters.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Leave a Comment:
The super rich republicans, you know Koch, Adelson, and on and on will tell the teabaggers to vote in the tax extensions as outline by President Obama or estate taxes will skyrocket and they are far more concerned about that than income tax rates.
They want what other folks worked for.
Who are "they"? Who are "other folks"? Use your brain if you have any left. Do you even know how estate/gift taxes work?
Typical idiot liberal post from markinbecker. Tax revenue is NOT THE PROBLEM moron. Tax the rich ...FINE, but start making peolple, like you, that don't pay a dime pay also. And taxing the rich and everyone will not solve the problems when the government SPENDS more than the tax revenue. Taxing people and letting government SPEND IT does not solve problems. When will you morons ever learn?
People produce products not taxes. When you don't work nothing gets done. We have record numbers of people doing NOTHING but saying "make someone else do it, or make somone else pay for it so I can sit on my butt".
I know are lots of numbers between 35 and 55 in that unreasonable tug of war.
I can also see "msnbctheliberallystupid" is a miserable whining little cheapskate.
And who do they think they are, markinbecker?
And you are worthless do nothing POS with a NOBRAIN at all. You pathetic brain fried drug addicted godless liberal idiot. Get a job and stay off the bong moron.
You lazy freeloading, moochers always LOSE. The diligent rule, always have, always will. You are a pathetic parasitic slug that lives off the labors or others. You disgust me, you slothful pig.
msn, I thought Obama was a Democrat. Didn't he win? Or am I mistaken? Maybe it is my "pathetic brain fried drug addicted" whatever. I am not sure that made any sense but I am sure you had much more "lernin" where you came from than I did.
msnbctheliberallystupid, you are suspended for a week for violating rule # 1 of the Code of Honor.
Why do the Republicans that post here always immediately resort to name calling?
the same reason the dems do!
You noticed that too, Fed. You should see some of the nasty Christmas cards I receive from them.
sdbolt, I don't think to the same extent that Republicans seem to. Your post makes my point. Republicans seem to be so filled with hate. Given that they are the Christian party and that this is Christmas, it seems even more conflicted. The Democrats seem to be the party of peace and good will.
the dumassocrats are more of the party of piece (as in take a huge piece of your earnings) and ill will.
As far as the name calling goes the Republicans most (not all) of the time are shooting back. (go ahead, now say NRA wacko).
If you don't believe, it seems that "fistedredhead" and "pigsuckotry" normally lay in wait and spew off with their trash mouths.
Pretend we have the same backbone as Evil Knievil, and go for the cliff!!
Can anyone list Barry's budget reductions?
He cut 1 trillion last year. Boo Yah! Tax increases will add another 1.2 trillion over 10 years. That leaves 2.8 trillion to cut or save over the next 10 years. The President has it all well in hand.
BS markinbecker, are you truly that stupid? How the heck did we have a 1.4 TRILLION DEFICIT every year if Obama has "cut 1 trillion"? Good grief you have to be a completely stupid person to even post such crap.
Dick Armey literally mounted an armed coup at a Tea Party Group prior to his ouster, according to a report. Why aren't you guys covering this? Other media networks are. Google "Dick Armey" folks.
2 words "Term Limits"
The plan is easy...the Republicans need to "out socialize" the Democrats. Get in their welfare and handout lines and quit paying taxes to support it. Crush the entitlement system that is the majority dumb-informed voting block. Give them more rope, we know what choice they will make. In marine biology, the Sea Squirt is known to digest its own brain. Libtards will do the same. Just give them the chance. Like watching a Kenyan do Algebra.
I see members of the GOP Cult that spew nothing but hate are out in force.
I see members of the dem suck the teet cult cutting and pasting their B.S. and hate
straight from the horses mouth, " i was totally lost after 7th grade math" well, that is totally obvious obama !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Mr. President and Congress: Please step on the gas and go over the cliff as fast as we can. That's the only way you can get American's attention so that they might wake up and see that they had something to do with this mess. I'm so sick and tired of the American electorate pointing fingers when it was us that elected them and let them do whatever they wanted.
They wont allow that to happen. Both the Repubs and the Dems will pass another bandaid to keep themselves in power for another term. That is all they care about. I wish everything would go over an actual cliff so all the bums would be voted out in the next three election cycles.
your politicians have done such a wonderful job bankrupting your country and it's amazing how anyone keeps backing them up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
only fools would keep playing the same blame game as their politicians do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they are all idiots and are destroying your country !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really Robert? The Repubs are the ones to bankrupt the country. I think you better put your better glasses on and look at both sides. They are all involved and responsible for where we are.
I say tax welfare .And food stamps.Free housing!I say tax these freeloaders too!Obama's Druncle.Everybody pays
Like blood from a turnip..Lets try and get money from the poor
So then you don't agree with President Bush when his tax cuts raised the bar on who need to pay INCOME taxes. Are you saying he was wrong? It seems that Romney also disagreed with President Bush as he made disparaging remarks about the 47%, many of them put their by President Bush. So it seems that a Republican President made a change that other Republicans are now complaining about. Do you end the Bush tax cuts or don't you. I say end them.
Obviously, the issue from the Republicans of not wanting to raise taxes is BS. By going over the cliff, taxes go up....
Regardless of what bill they pass, if any, we are still heading into another recession. But you can be damn sure of one thing, Obama will never take responsibility for it or anything else that is bad for his image. And with idiots like Pelosi and Reid serving as the party "leadership" the country is going to have to go through even tougher times before the average citizens/low information voter wakes up and finds out that the crap they have been spoon fed by the Dems and the MSM sycophants is exactly that, CRAP.
I say give Obama all of what he wants and then sit back and watch it implode. It will be painful, for sure, but at least we can finally get rid of their non-sense once and for all come 2014 and 2016.
At the end of this term, Obama will be asking for another 4 yrs to straighten out Bush's mess. Just watch.
KingK: Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzz............... Can you get any dumber??!!?? The "fiscal cliff," moron, is a Tea Party bill that passed the House. Boehner tried to get the House Republicans to modify it, but he lost. There are some 26 Republicans who voted with Boehner and are mortified becauase of the damned bill. Yet, here you are, dumbass, blaming Obama, Reid, and Pelosi for your own damned bill. Can you get any more stupid than you are?!!??
Uh, wrong TJ. The "Fiscal Cliff" bill was passed by both Dems and Repubs as a last minute compromise to raise the debt ceiling last time because neither side would yield. This was their version of a "poison pill" for each side. They still havent been able to come to a compromise on taxes and spending cuts, so here we are.
Why can we be "Damned sure" of that?? Because YOU say so?? Ya, ok, whatever LOL
Obama negotiated the bill, libtard. But that is not the problem. The problem is the proposed plan, by Obama , going forward, which does NOTHING to stop deficit spending and debt creation, but actually makes both WORSE. Idiots like Obama get in office making all kinds of promises they can't keep. So in order to keep their supporters ignorantly blissful (to keep the votes coming in), they keep making the same promises over and over again, no matter how bad they are for the country. Only in the Orwellian world of Obama speak can you label a budget proposal the "balanced approach' when the proposal calls for the creation of a $25 trillion national debt riddled with continuous deficit spending. And idiots like you, T Jefferson, swallow it hook, line and sinker because you bite on trite phrases and slogans and gloss over the substance.
enough: The "fiscal cliff" bill is a TEA Party bill written by the far right wing, extremist, fanatics in the Republican Party that Boehner tried his best to modify before the deadline much earlier this year. He lost the vote in his Party due to the power of the TEA party idiots that were elected in 2010. The bill was then "kicked down the road" by all Republicans in the House and a few "Blue Dog" Democrats. Blaming Obama for that fiasco is almost the same as saying, as they do, that it is Obama's fault the rich haven't been taxed more because Obama signed the bill not to raise taxes on them. Obama was faced with a deadline forced on him by the far right wing, extremist, fanatics in the House to either sign a bill not to raise taxes on the wealthy plutocrats in their party or to sign it and thereby not raising taxes on anyone, particularly the middle and underclasses. You have conveniently forgotten that part of it, but fortunately the people didn't since they re-elected Obama.
KingK: Three points, dumbass! One, the bill is a TEA Party bill that is their extreme answer (and yours) to limit the national debt. It is not Obama's bill and he wants it modified as does Speaker Boehner. Two, what the hell are you whining about. It's your damned bill and you want it passed. If Obama is able to modify it then, the Republic won't hurt so much. If he vetoes it, then it will become law because there aren't enough votes in Congress to over ride his veto. So, you total dumbass, what are you whining about. It's the bill you want and it may well be passed! Three, Obama HAS proposed serious cuts in federal government spending. In fact, they are deeper cuts than the Republican Party has proposed and passed in the past twenty years.
Higher taxes have to come if we're ever going to get America out of debt, I don't want them but it's a fact we all must face.
Higher taxes wont solve the problem without severe spending cuts. You see the tax increases are always immediate and the spending cuts are promised several years down the road. Somehow the cuts never materialize.
Well it will do absolutely no good to raise taxes if the deficit spending and debt building are not stopped. And given the laundry list of things Obama wants to spend the revenue on, it is clear he has no intention of stopping deficit spending and debt building. Mr. Obama has lied to the American people in each and every one of his speeches before Congress/ State of the Union addresses. Until the voters start holding liars like him, on both sides of the aisle, accountable we will continue to suffer.
KingK: Dumbass! Obama has proposed spending cuts larger than any Republican spending cuts in the past twenty years! Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzz................ Why do you keep posting the BS you dream up that has no basis in fact?!?
TJ, those cuts take place long after he is gone from office. Stop with the mane calling and go check some facts yourself.
No, TJ, he has not. What he has proposed is cuts in the rate of spending increases. There is a big difference, but I don't expect morons like you to understand that. Actual cuts in spending and actual reduction in the debt are what are needed to get US out of this mess. Not slowing ot the rate of increase in deficit spending and debt creation. When you can get the facts straight and understand basic concepts, then come back and engage in a meaningful conversation. until then your just making yourself look foolish by parroting a bunch of party line gibberish made to placate morons like you into falling in line.
KingK, you are absolutely correct. But trying to explain anything to those with their heads up their azzes is a worthless exercise..
Regardless of how much new tax revenue you give the government, they will spend more than that. To actually fix the dire long term financial outlook you have to take things away from people who are used to getting them. That is usually political suicide and thats why this problem will not get fixed until there is a catostrophic financial collapse that forces change. Thats the essence of the Greek problem, many years of unsustainable goverment benefits and then the day of drastic cuts comes and people rioting in the streets. The only other solution is growing the private sector and that does not happen through increased taxation.
There is no person on the planet as stupid and as poorly educated as a far right wing, extremist, fanatic. They do not understand what the three branches of the American government are nor how they work with each other. The concept of "checks and balances" means absolutely nothing to a far right wing fanatic since they do not have the formal education to understand it. Economics, of course, is so far beyond their grasp that it is laughable. Thank God there are so few of them in the Republic that they haven't won the popular vote in a presidential election but once since 1988! They are an embarrassment to the Republic, but it is the price of freedom that we must accept these mindless idiots in the social order.
TJ, if there are so few Repubs to worry about why are you always spewing hatred towards them. I always find it humorous when a Lib uses the term Thank God.
Apparently you are the idiot TJefferson that does not understand the three branches of government nor economics. Extreme idiots like you are the real problems. Your post makes absolutely NO POINTS other than that you confirm you have no understanding about anything.
Any economist will tell you that SPENDING 20% or more of GDP is BANKRUPTCY, and Obama spends at 25% of the GDP and would spend even more if he could. Communist, Marxist, and Socialists all believe government is "God" and should be in 100% control of every business, and every person. Get a clue moron. Being an idiot such as you are is no longer and excuse. Blaming others for you being a pathetic loser only proves you are a pathetic loser.
msnbctheliberallystupid: Thank you for proving my point! Obviously, your solution to the near complete crash of the American financial system in the fall 2008 was to allow it to happen. The markets would straighten things out right. Oh, we would be hurting for a few weeks, but then prosperity would have been right around the corner. The Federal Government should not have loaned any money to GMC nor should the big banks have been prevented from collapse. TARP and the Stimulus Package should not have been passed nor should have any government of any industrialized nation on the planet have also poured billions of dollars into the markets to prevent a total world-wide, economic collapse. The world would have only suffered a few weeks, according to you geniuses, and then prosperity would have returned greater than ever.
According to you dumbasses, all of this deficit spending and the resulting increase in the national debt could have been avoided if Obama (not Bush, of course) and the rest of the industrialized nations on the planet had not spent a dime to help prevent a world-wide economic depression that would have lasted only a few weeks. Further you say, any one who supports the President and the rest of the industrialized world from saving us from an economic disaster is a Communist, a Marxist, and a Socialist---the usual suspicious characters! Why not blame FDR and Harry Truman for the enormous debt the nation incurred at the end of 1945??!!?? Your argument that winning the war against a world-wide, economic depression over the past four years by deficit spending is nothing more than a sham since there was no economic crisis in the fall of 2008. If you want to know only one reason why you appear foolish to the majority of Americans, there it is!
Fairness requires top earners pay more
Citizens need to know the truth about government budgets — national, state and municipal. The federal budget is $2.3 trillion, the expenditure is $3.8 trillion. Federal plus state plus municipality is $8.06 trillion. The sum total of all personal income is $12.98 trillion. Thus, the governments are operating at 62 percent of total personal income. The transaction (sales) tax rate has hidden components, business taxes are hidden as production costs. Industry must do this to balance their budgets or go broke. With a centralized banking system, the federal government can print more money than collected in revenue; states and municipalities cannot. Taxation at state and municipal levels is less progressive than federal, which burdens the lowest income levels with the highest effective rate; and the upper 2 percent with the lowest effective rate. Thus, municipalities borrow more in a recession, as the lower quintiles' wages are more diminished. We have cities falling into bankruptcy. The solution is national income taxation, and fairness requires top quintile to pay more taxes, using a progressive tax rate. And here in is a mathematical solution. Incomes less than $20,000 are not taxed, surtax is used for $20,000 through $200,000 at 30 percent, and surtax is used for above $200,000 at 90 percent. Couples freely share incomes. All other forms of taxation are not allowed, including business taxes. With this taxation method, the citizen tax rate is less than the 2011 federal income tax for incomes less than $250,000. This, with the bonus of no state and municipality taxation. Oh, but the gentile aristocracy objects. After all, they have invested millions in lobbying to reduce the 1960 91.5 percent at $400,000 to the present 15 percent at infinity, while all lower incomes' top rate is 35 percent. And Grover Norquist, neither elected nor popular, has effectively filibustered corrective revenue measures. To the founders of the Constitution, he is the sum of all fears. The president's plan is a small step in the right direction. The time for corrective action has arrived. Fairness requires the top quintile pay more taxes.
BS. What you propose is nothing more than Communism. If someone makes over 200000 why tax them at 90%? Why? Just because you think they should not benefit from a product they create? Then no one will put the effort into making anything. Why train to run a race if you are not going to be allowed to win it? Why should someone be FORCED to lose a race or slow down so their margin of victory is to YOUR DEEMED ACCEPTABLE LEVEL.
You are nothing more than a Communist. Who made you God Almighty to define what "FAIRNESS" is?
So at the peak of the Cold War, with the income tax rate at 91.5% at $400K year, we were not a Republic Democracy. Now that the Gentile Aristocracy is being taxed at half the rate of the Lower Quintile, we are giving the lower class in slave wages. Na...
Taxing the rich more will not increase the employment related earnings of the poor.
Taxing the money results in lowering manufacturing costs; that increases earnings relative to goods ratio. An increase in earnings buying power, and lowers cost of goods making our products more competative.
A lot of people keep saying the Republicans lost the election. I say we all lost the elections as we put the very same people back into office from both parties that couldn't run a lemonade stand let alone our government. We have no one to blame but ourselves as we, the electorate, are not getting informed on who we are putting into office. No budgets are getting passed. Stopgap measures are being used just to keep our government going. Hard decisions and legislation are being kicked down the road and have been for decades. Social Security, medicare, and medicare programs are in jeapordy. Hell, Nancy Pelosi even stated, let's pass Obama Care so we can see what's in it. Are all of our elected officials this stupid to pass legislation when they don't even have a clue as to what is in it?
No, we have no one to blame but ourselves for this mess we have in our government, so quit your bitchen and deal with it. Make your own decisions on what you need to do to survive as this is the way we should be living our lives and not waiting for someone to rescue us.
I personally believe the cliff is a good thing. Everyone pays more in tax, and we have forced cuts in spending. That includes the military. The left will learn once and for all that Keynesian economics does not work, and the right will learn that we don't need troops protecting South Korea, Germany, and Japan.
I have emailed my representatives repeatedly asking to let it happen. Im all for the "cliff".
Politics as usual from two Parties that are just as corrupt as the other. They all want the glory, and will make the other side looks like the bad guy.
I say lets go over the cliff. I'm debt free from Credit Cards anyway, and my Truck registration isn't due until June, Auto Insurance paid for 2013. Cell Phone that's only $70.00 a month, and $700.00 rent, a few house expenses, and a surplus about $1200.00, so I'm good.
Maybe this will be a wake up call to both sides and the blind, bias supporters to lead by actions, instead of word when it comes to blaming Bush, and Obama for excessive spending.
Obama's re-election = Bushes 4th term in Office.
About time to stop blaming Bush. It's getting really old. The blame lies with both parties.
Exactly, the problem is the bias supporter is always going to give a pass to their own party for the same thing they could come down against the other party for.
fix the problem at the root...
your politicians should only receive money from a taxpayers fund and they should only be allowed to campaign for one month. if they receive money from anyone else it should be illegal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A moderate Republican is nothing more than the rest of the greedy, corrupt, selfish pigs half our nation refers too as nation destroying Democrats. 25 trillion in debt to pass on to the kids on it's way.
Everyone buckle up, going to be hell to pay some day.
Democrats, republicans, same thing. Neither work for the American people.
And that is the truth. Voting for one is like voting for the other. I have been voting for anyone who is not from either party.
why would the americans allow their politicians to bankrupt their country anyway...????????????????
the americans should of been outraged and demanded that they get off their butts and fix the problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!
but...
all they did was blame the other party just like their politicians trained them to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amen to that!
If you want the bought and paid for republicans to come to the table, throw out a proposal that doesn't raise taxes 1 cent, but cuts the crap out of the bloated military industrial complex. Watch as the republi-rats start to squeal like little girls as their personal incomes are in jeopardy. That will clearly demonstrate to the whole country just how screwed up our political system is.
Weeeeeeeooooo the peeeeeeeeople can handle the cliiiiiiiiff!