Posted on 12/22/2012 10:09:35 AM PST by Evil Slayer
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is resisting pressure from Republicans pushing for the Senate to take a more active role to avoid the “fiscal cliff” after House legislation stalled Thursday.
Reid has rejected Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) assertion that avoiding the fiscal cliff now depends on President Obama working out a deal with the Senate. Reid’s allies said it is unrealistic to expect him and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to step in and hammer out an eleventh-hour agreement.
On Friday, Reid dismissed McConnell’s proposal that he bring to the floor legislation extending tax rates that could be molded with a variety of amendments.
Reid argues the Senate has already done its work on the expiring tax rates by passing a bill in July shielding family income below $250,000 from tax hikes. He has insisted for weeks that the House take up and pass that bill.
Republicans, however, say the legislation is inadequate because it would allow taxes on inheritances and dividend income to soar.
Until now, Reid has had a limited role in the talks. President Obama kept him informed of negotiations with Boehner, but he was not an active participant.
That may now change. Reid met with Obama at the White House Friday in what could be preparation for a bigger role.
With the talks between Obama and Boehner at an impasse, some Senate Republicans think getting a deal in the upper chamber first is the most likely path forward. Boehner’s failure Thursday to advance his “Plan B” proposal to extend income tax rates for family income below $1 million intensified concerns that he does not have enough support within his own conference to reach agreement with the president.
“We’re now in a bad spot,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “I hope we don’t go
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Oh here we go...cue up continuing resolution time.
Senator Do Nothing Reid.
This bastard can’t even come up with a yearly budget.
The Senate still has any number of bills from the House to act upon.
House should just send the cut to the Senate (again) for action. Hit the ball back into the Democrat camp and let it happen. They will cut spending or suffer the consequences.
MEMO TO SPEAKER: There are times when you cannot save the people from what is inevitable. Stop agonizing. You have done enough. If sequestration happens, the people will take care of the democrats. Have faith; the people know.
Right....3 years in a row...
Let Hussein S0et0r0 stay in HI.
Here's the problem: The House can't shut off funding for anything so long as Harry Reid's system remains in place.
So long as the Senate refuses to deal with any budget passed by the House, we remain on the Baseline Budgeting Autopilot -- the departments get last year's budget plus X or Y%.
This is the first thing the Speaker should have dealt with. Pass a budget and a revenue (tax) plan, send it to the Senate...and recess. Promise not to return to Washington until the Senate has done its job. Once they have passed a budget bill, as amended, and it is ready for the Conference Committee, return to Washington and commence business-as-usual. In the meantime,
Given that the House is simply forcing the Senate to perform its Constitutional duty, the Republican House has a justifiable position that they should be able to effectively defend until Doomsday.
Sure, why should those evil bastards do anything? And republicans won’t go after them for this, either. Let the country go to hell.
That would take testicular fortitude in one individual, the Speaker of the House. Unfortunately, either Hillary still has them in her lock box or he has major issues that prevent him from doing so, aka what every one here is talking about around the edges, does he have a problem with the bottle. If he does, take a powder, get help and serve with dignity when you get back we are forgiving, right now we are rudderless without his leadership.
Both Harry Reid’s and Obama’s “fiscal cliff” proposals don’t, won’t and are not intended to “solve” the “fiscal cliff”.
They are only intended - with the help of the treasonous media - to pretend to “solve” the “fiscal cliff” issue by dealing only with less than 1/2 of that issue - taxes (and only for certain taxpayers) - and offering nothing on the major portion of the “fiscal cliff” issue - spending.
Knowing that raising taxes on individuals earning over $250,000 and lowering exemptions on death taxes WILL NOT raise revenue levels to the levels Mr Obama is spending, and proposing nothing on reducing that spending, or any major reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, Obama and Reid are counting on the public’s ignorance and the media to sell their pretense that their tax proposals alone will solve the fiscal cliff, knowing also that their tax proposals alone will not stave off more increases in the national debt, unless spending is curtailed, spending they have no interest in reducing.
With the help of the ultra timid non-confrontational GOP elite, Obama and media keep out front the “GOP refusal to raise taxes on the rich” while Obama’s deficit sideline is sidelined in the public mind.
Whose fault is it that Liberals win their political battles in the media, not on substance?
The leadership of tbe GOP, that’s who.
“Pressure grows on Senate Democrats to act on ‘fiscal cliff’”
Sure it does.
Saying it is so doesn’t make it so.
Dear Harry; go to Hawaii and smoke some choom with President Pee Wee and chill.
How so? The House must vote affirmatively for any appropriation, either a specific bill or a continuing resolution. If they don't vote for an appropriations vehicle, then there is no money to spend. The spending isn't on autopilot. There must be a House vote.
Not happening, Os whole plan is to go off the cliff while getting on TV every day telling voters how he is doing everything humanly possible to avoid it,
Politics is a stage and he has the act down.
It is and it isn’t on autopilot. I work for a small division of CBP. A couple years ago the journeyman pay grade for Border Patrol Agents and CBP Officers were raised to GS-12. Unfortunately without a change in those line items in the budget, money for those increases have had to come out of operating budgets. What that means is that all these agents and officers are getting paid $90-100k, but there isn’t any money to do anything. Our operations have been cut in half, despite the Mexican Cartels taking over most of the transshipment and smuggling in our area.
They better not try to use the bottle as an excuse. I've known several hellacious leaders in my time that were drinkers. He's got serious skeletons IMO.
As things now are, the House has no affirmative control over spending except for the continuing budget resolutions -- which control what the total spending is, but not necessarily what it is spent on.
When Dingy Harry refused to pass a budget through the Senate for FY 2010, he intentionally created this situation where spending continued at the previous year's rate plus an automatic escalator -- the Baseline Budgeting System. That is also how Porkulus -- a supposed one-time-only trillion dollar expenditure -- ended up in the Baseline Budget, yielding annual trillion dollar-plus deficits.
The constitutional requirement that the House initiate all spending and revenue bills has been neutralized for the past three years. The House may authorize "new" spending, if it passes the Senate, but the old spending continues unabated.
The budget "process" has been made into a travesty.
I don’t think dropping the hammer on Reid was was in their Playbook. I think they’re surprised by the degree of SPINE showed by the Republicans in the House, and they didn’t have their own Plan B ready.
This is starting to get interesting.
No budget passed in the porta-potty Sin-ate for several years. All kabuki theatre. Ried is a despicable a-hole.
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