House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday that she backs President Barack Obama's newest proposal to avert the fiscal cliff, defying some progressive Democrats who object to an included cost-of-living calculation that could effectively cut entitlement benefits to Social Security recipients.

Asked by NBC's Andrea Mitchell if she believes she can rally enough Democratic support to pass the White House's plan, Pelosi responded "Yes, I do."

"I believe the president has demonstrated great leadership in what he put forth," she said, arguing that the White House plan would help avert the cliff, create consumer confidence and avoid a credit rating downgrade.

Pelosi pushed back on progressive opponents of one compromise measure that would modify the way cost-of-living increases are calculated to determine Society Security payments. While some in the Democratic Party say that the change -- called "chained CPI" --  would effectively cut Social Security payments, the minority leader said Tuesday that the effects on poor recipients would be minimal once all of the specifics of the deal are worked out.

"The details of this are not all ironed out, but they all mitigate for helping the poorest and neediest in our society, whether they are [Supplemental Security Income] recipients, whether they're 80 and older, or whether they're truly needy," she said.

But, she added, she would join some of those progressive Democrats in opposing an increase in the Medicare eligibility age.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters in the Capitol in Washington December 13, 2012.

Pelosi also came out against House Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" proposal earlier Tuesday to push a standalone measure that would address tax rates for earners under $1 million.

"Plan B, I would call it 'Plan Befuddled," she said of Boehner's suggestion, adding that the measure cannot pass both houses of Congress.

'It's a tactic, but it's not a serious proposal," she said.

Republicans have pointed out that Pelosi herself suggested in May that tax rates should be maintained for all earners under $1 million, the same threshold that Boehner offered today.

Pelosi said Tuesday that her own proposal was in part a way to "smoke out" the opposition in getting Republicans to agree to at least some rate hikes, a move that they have now made in -- Pelosi argues -- a victory for the president.

"I'm glad he's taking up some of my suggestions," she said of Boehner. 'My next suggestion would be to put something on the table - as we were suggesting then to smoke out the Republicans - at what level would you raise the rates on the wealthiest people in this country? Not 'would you raise them at a million dollars?' That was the point of that exercise."

Hillary Clinton’s possible 2016 bid for the presidency won one high-profile supporter Tuesday in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Pelosi said during an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that she hoped Clinton – who will retire soon from her job as secretary of state – would make another bid for the presidency in four years.

“Wouldn’t that be exiting?” Pelosi said. “I hope she goes – why wouldn’t she?”

“She could be president of the United States, and she would be great,” added Pelosi, who was speaker of the House and stayed neutral during the 2008 primary between Clinton and Barack Obama. “And if she decided to run, I think she would win. She would go into the White House as well prepared, or better prepared, than almost anybody who has served in that office in a very long time.”

Updated 10:42 a.m. - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told fellow House Democrats today that she will run to keep her leadership position, likely extending her tenure as Democratic leader for another two years.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2102, with newly elected Democratic House members.

"I have made a decision to submit my name to my colleagues to once again serve as the House Democratic leader," Pelosi said Wednesday at a press conference following a meeting with fellow Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

On the 10th anniversary of her election as Democratic leader, Pelosi said her colleagues had made their desire for her to remain as leader "very clear." There had been mounting speculation that the 72-year-old California Democrat might step aside and yield to younger figures in the party.

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Pelosi served two terms as speaker of the House, the first woman to ever hold that role, from 2007-2011, during which time she oversaw House passage of President Barack Obama's landmark health reform law. She has also taken a special interest in advancing legislation intended to address the effects of climate change, prompting a vote on a "cap-and-trade" bill in 2009 which eventually stalled in the Senate.

Republicans seemed almost giddy about the announcement. 

"There is no better person to preside over the most liberal House Democratic Caucus in history than the woman who is solely responsible for relegating it to a prolonged minority status," said Paul Lindsay, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

As part of her decision to stay aboard, Pelosi said that New York Rep. Steve Israel had agreed to serve a second term as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Israel helped Democrats pick up seats in the most recent election.

Pelosi's decision also means the top leadership in the House would presumably remain the same for the next two years:

-- John Boehner as speaker

-- Eric Cantor as majority leader

-- Pelosi as minority leader

-- Steny Hoyer as minority whip.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested she would make her future plans known on Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill.

Pelosi, the first woman to ever serve as speaker of the House, answered a question about her intention to remain as House minority leader by inviting reporters to gather for a press conference tomorrow morning.

"I'll see you right here, 10 o'clock, tomorrow morning," she said. That would allow her to first confer with fellow Democrats.

The 72-year-old California Democrat served as speaker for two full terms, but remained as Democrats' leader in the House following Republicans' takeover of the chamber during the 2010 midterm elections.

Pelosi had scheduled leadership elections for a date slightly later than usual, prompting speculation that she might relinquish her role as the top Democrat in the House -- a position she has held for a decade. Wednesday marks the 10 year anniversary of her ascension to that position.

 Her tenure was most memorably defined by her tenure as speaker during the first two years of President Barack Obama's first term, during which time Pelosi helped shepherd Obama's landmark health care reform law to passage.

Pelosi's departure could set off a tough battle between House Democrats to replace her. Among the candidates could be her No. 2, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) or Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) -- among others.

House Republicans will allow a vote next week on the Democrats' bill to extend the expiring Bush tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced Thursday.

Boehner said that Republicans were "more than happy" to bring to a vote the Democratic bill, which passed through the Senate on Wednesday in a narrow 51-48 vote.

The Democratic legislation extends the tax rates established by the President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 (referred to by many as the  “Bush tax cuts”) for only those households making $250,000 or less; tax rates for the highest income group would be allowed to spring back to their rate at the beginning of 2001.

Republicans will couple a vote on their own tax bill, which would extend the rates across the board for another calendar year, with the Democratic bill. These tax cuts were first set to expire at the end of 2009, but President Obama agreed with Republicans on legislation to extend the rates for another two years.

"If our Democrat colleagues want to offer the president's plan or the Senate Democrats' plan, we're more than happy to give them a vote," Boehner said.

Republicans are eager to allow a vote because the Democratic legislation is expected to fail in the GOP-led House. The Republican bill will likely pass, though neither bill will likely advance to the president's desk. Rather, both votes are largely for show and intended to put the other side's lawmakers on the record on taxes.

The battle over extending current tax rates equals nothing more than a common messaging war that both sides are happy to fight leading up to November's elections. Republicans want to be able to paint Democrats as trying to raise taxes on small business owners, while Democrats argue that Republicans want to give tax breaks to the richest Americans.

“The only thing standing in the way of a middle income tax cut is the House Republicans,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters today, “The Republicans want to spend hundreds of billions on an extra tax cut for people making over $250,000 a year.”

Obama echoed that call today, telling reporters that “the only thing that is going to prevent the vast majority of Americans from not seeing a tax increase next year is if the House doesn't act.”  Obama said that he and his cabinet members will continue to make that point in the coming days.

Both sides have conceded privately that this is a fight that will likely go down to the wire, when the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire on January 1, 2013. In the weeks before that deadline, Congress will need to address a number of issues that, taken together, have been deemed the “fiscal cliff” because of the potentially devastating consequences they could have on the economy if Congress does not act. 

In addition to addressing the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts, Congress needs to reallocate automatic cuts scheduled to take effect as a result of the deficit Supercommittee’s failure last year. Because of their failure, automatic cuts to defense and non-defense agencies could result in an estimated 2 million jobs lost in 2013, a potentially massive blow to an already struggling economy.

In a speech at the Brookings Institution last week, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) threatened to use the extension of the tax rates as a bargaining chip going into year-end negotiations, which will also include the expiration of the payroll tax cut, as well as a fight over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling.

Murray says she could see a scenario in which Democrats allow all the tax cuts to expire, in an effort to put Republicans' feet to the fire so that they raise revenue to address the nation’s deficit. 

“If middle-class families start seeing more money coming out of their paychecks next year — are Republicans really going to stand up and fight for new tax cuts for the rich?,” Murray said in the speech, “Are they going to continue opposing the Democrats’ middle-class tax cut once the slate has been wiped clean?”

Republicans are optimistic about their chances of retaining control of the House despite a dramatic two-year tenure in charge that saw approval of Congress touch all-time lows.

The battle for the House is far from set in stone, but political forecasters are skeptical of Democrats’ ability to achieve the net gain of 25 seats they need to wrest control from the GOP. The change in the chamber’s makeup come January is expected to fall within a narrow band in which Republicans either add or subtract a few seats from their 49-member majority.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohiois flanked by other House GOP leaders during a news conference June 27 on Capitol Hill.

“What’s happened is that the normal gains you would expect Democrats to get coming off a 63-seat loss were offset by some retirements and Republican districts being shored up through redistricting,” said Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan “Cook Political Report,” which follows congressional races.

The renewed GOP optimism marks a slight shift from just a few months ago, when House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, warned his party had a “one-in-three chance” of losing the House.

“Our incumbents are in a strong position, and our challengers are running great races,” said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). “Voters understand that House Republicans were sent to Washington to stop the madness of this administration, and we've done that.”

Democrats, as one might expect, are quick to disagree. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has outraised its Republican counterpart at points this cycle – a feat for a non-incumbent party – and most recently pulled in $2.3 million in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama’s health care law.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who lost the speakership after Republicans’ victories in 2010, told Reuters last week that her party, right now, has the momentum.

"It’s easier to win 25 seats than to hold 63," the California Democrat said at a summit in Washington. "We have out-recruited the Republicans and we have fabulous candidates. This time we will be ready."

But Democrats are quick to caution that political observers shouldn’t consider that statement a guarantee.

“There's nobody who's said we're definitely going to win the House,” said a Democratic strategist familiar with the party’s House campaign efforts. “We've said it's going to be a good night, but we've never guaranteed victory from the outset.

Democrats held a one-point advantage (within the margin of error) in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Forty-five percent of voters said they would prefer a Democratic Congress as an outcome of this fall’s elections, while 44 percent said that they would prefer the GOP to be in charge. Eleven percent said they were unsure.

Still, though, Republicans have in recent months closed an advantage that Democrats had opened in NBC/WSJ polls earlier this year. Democrats held a six-point lead in the generic ballot in January of this year.

January marked what was arguably a low point, politically, for House Republicans. A fight over payroll taxes late last year – when Republicans insisted on offsetting spending cuts to finance an extension of a payroll tax cut favored by the president and Democrats – threatened to crystallize an impression of a House led by hard-charging conservatives.

That followed a year in which Republicans had stared down Obama multiple times on funding the government. And an August showdown that raised the specter of defaulting on the national debt took a toll on nearly every participant involved.

“The possibilities of Republicans self-destructing to the point where it could cost them 25 seats, it was there. You could have seen the path last summer,” Cook said.

So what’s changed? Quite simply, Congress has stayed out of the headlines. While Washington has hardly been a model of good governance, a package last week to extend low student loan interest rates and fund highway infrastructure projects short-circuited some of the claims of a “Do-Nothing Congress.”

“They’re not engaging in a lot of self-destructive behavior,” said Cook, adding that some sort of catalyzing, self-destructive event would likely be needed to put Democrats in position for a takeover.

There’s still much that could change, though, in the battle for Congress. The presidential election could unfold in any number of directions, and lawmakers on both sides are carefully heeding economic indicators set for release over the next couple of months.

Each side, though, has started to firm up its message and reserved millions in airtime this fall to advance it.

Republicans are particularly eager to use the Supreme Court’s determination that the new health reform law is constitutional under the power of Congress to tax. It lends some measure of credence to a tried-and-tested Republican attack – accusing Democrats of raising taxes. The GOP has also sought to tie Democrats to Obama in districts where the president is less popular, prompting some Democratic candidates or incumbents to forgo the party’s summer convention in Charlotte.

Democrats, meanwhile, have enjoyed a degree of political mileage from the past two Republican budgets offered by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. These budgets proposed reshaping Medicare and drastic spending cuts over the next decade, and the overwhelming majority of House Republicans voted to advance them.

Democrats have made no secret about their intention to turn that budget back against Republicans.

“The Republican budget choices are going to be the focal point this fall,” said the Democratic strategist.

Three times on "Meet the Press" last Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the payment individuals must eventually make for failing to buy insurance under the health-care law is a penalty, not a tax.

"It's a penalty that comes under the tax code," Pelosi said, "for the 1%, perhaps, of the population who may decide that they're going to be free riders" by not buying insurance.

Moderator David Gregory persisted. "But it's a new tax. It is a new tax on the American people," he said.

"No, no, no, no," Pelosi responded. "It's not a tax. It's a penalty for free riders."

So what is the payment that virtually all citizens must make if they decline to obtain health insurance when that provision of the Affordable Care Act takes effect in 2014?

In his Supreme Court opinion declaring the law constitutional under Congress's taxing authority, Chief Justice John Roberts called it a tax no fewer than 26 times. The health-care law itself repeatedly refers to the payment as a penalty, but Roberts said that didn't matter. The conclusion about what it is, he said, "should not change simply because Congress used the word 'penalty.'" 

For him, the issue is how it actually works, not the label attached to it in the statute.

Penalties, Roberts said, work much differently from taxes. Quoting an earlier Supreme Court decision, he said a penalty "is an exaction imposed by statute for an unlawful act." But failing to buy health insurance is not unlawful, because a citizen has an alternative -- either buy insurance or pay a tax. The conclusion: It cannot be a penalty.

"Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS," Roberts wrote. "The shared responsibility payment merely imposes a tax citizens may lawfully choose to pay in lieu of buying health insurance."

It is, he put it succinctly, “a tax on going without health insurance.”

Is all this semantics, or does it matter? It made all the difference to Chief Justice Roberts. His opinion makes it amply clear that if he thought it wasn't a tax, he would not have voted to find it constitutional. Under the law of the case, the Supreme Court declared that payment a tax, not a penalty.

House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused her Republican colleagues of acting as a "mouthpiece of the health insurance industry," and said their calls for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act are "unrealistic."

Pelosi, who spent a lot of political capital to get the bill passed in 2010, disagreed with critics who say the new law amounts to a tax increase on the American people. "It's not a tax," she said, adding, "it's penalty for free riders."

Politically, it's unclear yet whether the Supreme Court's ruling this week will be an asset or a liability for the president. Governor Bobby Jindal - a possible Vice Presidential pick for Mitt Romney - argued the best way to challenge the president's health reform law is to "elect Mitt Romney to repeal [it]."

However, former Governor Howard Dean (D-VT) contended Jindal's argument did not make sense. "Mitt Romney is the one that showed [the individual mandate] could be done for the whole country," he said. "I don't get this at all."

You can watch the entire program on our website, and be sure to check out our roundtable that broke down what comes next for the President's health care bill. We were joined by: NBC’s Political Director Chuck Todd; Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson; the National Review’s Rich Lowry; and new co-anchor of the Today Show, NBC's Savannah Guthrie.

Meet the Press will not air next week due to NBC Sports' coverage of the Tour de France. 

If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi tells NBC's David Gregory that the health care overhaul has already fought the hardest of its battles.

Updated 2:34 p.m. - Democrats are no doubt thrilled by Thursday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the president's health care reform law.

So thrilled, that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is throwing a party for select Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill.

NBC News obtained the following invitation sent out this morning a few hours after the decision:

Nancy Pelosi
Democratic Leader
United States House of Representatives

requests the pleasure of your company at a reception honoring today's victory on the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, the twenty  eighth day of June, two thousand twelve at five o'clock in the afternoon

Leader's Conference Room
United States Capitol

A Pelosi aide adds: "This reception will consist of Costco cake and brownie bites. No taxpayer dollars being spent, very informal." No alcohol will be served.

Updated 12:57 p.m. - President Barack Obama hailed a Supreme Court opinion upholding his signature health reform law as "a victory for people all over this country," as Mitt Romney led galvanized conservatives in vowing to seek the legislation's repeal.

The political stakes imbued in the high court's 5-4 ruling allowing the Affordable Care Act to stand were starkly evident by midday Thursday in Washington, as Obama and Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, laid out clearly different visions when it came to the law, "Obamacare."

The opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined the court's liberals, determined that the act's individual mandate -- the requirement that individuals purchase health insurance, or face a penalty -- was constitutional as a tax.

"I know there will be a lot of discussion today about the politics of all this, about who won and who lost," Obama said in remarks at the White House, in which he emphasized many of the law's benefits. "That discussion completely misses the point. Whatever the politics, today's decision was a victory for people all over this country whose lives are more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold it."

Related: Supreme Court upholds health care law

A few minutes earlier, Romney renewed his promise to seek the full repeal of the law from his first day in office.

"What the court did not do on the last day of its session I will do on my first day as president," Romney said. He called the court's opinion both bad law and bad policy.

Each candidate's comments underscored, though, the political dividing lines that will shape the battle for control of the White House and Congress this November.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. relays the breaking news to her staff that the Supreme Court had just upheld the Affordable Care Act, June 28 on Capitol Hill.

For Obama and Democrats, the decision represented an unmitigated victory after he had championed passage of the law at considerable political expense.

And for Romney, the decision is poised to mobilize conservatives who have, at times, been less than enthusiastic about his candidacy. A number of Republicans' statements in reaction to the ruling emphasized the need to defeat Obama this fall. As a token of that enthusiasm for Romney, his campaign's aides boasted of raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations after the decision was handed down.

"This is now a time for the American people to make a choice," Romney said in remarks to reporters in downtown Washington. "Our mission is clear" -- if we want to get rid of Obamacare, we're going to have to replace President Obama."

The president treated the Affordable Care Act as a settled matter, now that the court has ruled. He urged the country to move forward.

"The highest court in the land has now spoken. We will continue to implement this law, and we'll work together to improve upon it where we can," Obama said. "But what we won't do -- and what the country can't afford to do -- is re-fight the political battles of two years ago, or go back to the way things were."

But already, House Republicans have scheduled a vote to repeal the law for July 11. They have made similar attempts in the past, but their legislation has failed in the Senate, where a supermajority of 60 votes is needed to advance legislation.

"Today's ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety," said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) in a statement. "Republicans stand ready to work with a president who will listen to the people and will not repeat the mistakes that gave our country Obamacare."

Vote now: Do you agree with Supreme Court ruling on health care law?

Democrats, though, were jubilant. Many liberals had been bracing for defeat in front of the Supreme Court after the conservative jurists aggressively questioned Obama administration lawyers in oral arguments earlier this year.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) helped shepherd the law to passage in the House as speaker in spring of 2010; Democrats lost control of the chamber in that fall's midterm elections, in part due to Republican-driven fury toward the health reform law.

"In passing health reform, we made history for our nation and progress for the American people," she said in a statement. "Today, the Supreme Court affirmed our progress and protected that right, securing a future of health and economic security for the middle class and for every American."

Democratic aides on Capitol Hill said that Pelosi this morning called Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), a longtime champion of health reform.

"Now, Teddy can rest," Pelosi told Kennedy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), speaking on the Senate floor, said he was "pleased to see the Supreme Court put the rule of law ahead of partisanship."

It was difficult, hours after the opinion was issued, to discern how the day's news would affect the long arc of the presidential campaign.

Romney has mostly focused his criticism of Obama on the anemic state of the economy; the health reform law Romney had signed as governor of Massachusetts also included an individual mandate. (Obama, in his remarks, took a shot at Romney, noting that many political figures had supported that provision, "including the current Republican nominee for president.")

But while the Supreme Court's opinion lets stand the Affordable Care Act, the law still invites intense political reaction from voters, and it's likely to remain as a central issue in the electoral battle for the presidency and control of Congress.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this week found that 37 percent of Americans said they would be pleased if the court struck down the law, while 22 percent would be disappointed.

And more Americans -- 41 percent -- said they thought the law was a bad idea, versus 35 percent who said it was a good plan.

President Obama warned leaders in Congress that he wouldn't tolerate another "self-inflicted political crisis" associated with the need to raise the nation's debt limit.

Over lunch Wednesday at the White House, Obama cautioned House Speaker John Boehner, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell against another standoff that plagued Washington last summer.

“We're not going to recreate the debt ceiling debacle of last August,” Press Secretary Jay Carney recounted the president saying during his lunch meeting with House and Senate leaders.

Boehner’s office released its own account of the meeting shortly after Carney began the White House daily briefing, saying that the House speaker had asked the president whether he would aim for a debt limit increase that didn’t include any spending cuts, to which the president responded, “Yes.”

According to Boehner’s office, the speaker responded, "As long as I'm around here, I'm not going to allow a debt ceiling increase without doing something serious about the debt."

Carney said Boehner asked whether the president was advocating “the clean debt ceiling,” which Carney argued was “a little different” than asking whether or not it would include spending cuts.

But, Carney continued, “The essence is the same. And the president's point was, we should not hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to one party's political agenda.”

Obama and the four leaders in Congress dined on hoagies fetched earlier in the day by the president during a stop at Washington's Taylor Gourmet sandwich shop.