Freshly returned from their holiday eggnog, the 11th hour crunch to come up with a deal to avoid plunging over the fiscal cliff began with push, shove, and more push.
The House meets in pro forma session today; the Senate is already in debate, but on FISA reauthorization.
“The House has acted on two bills which collectively would avert the entire fiscal cliff if enacted. Those bills await action by the Senate,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said in a joint statement.
“If the Senate will not approve and send them to the president to be signed into law in their current form, they must be amended and returned to the House. Once this has occurred, the House will then consider whether to accept the bills as amended, or to send them back to the Senate with additional amendments,” they continued.
“The House will take this action on whatever the Senate can pass, but the Senate first must act. The lines of communication remain open, and we will continue to work with our colleagues to avert the largest tax hike in American history, and to address the underlying problem, which is spending.”
In response, from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office:
“House Republicans pushed middle class families closer to the cliff by wasting an entire week with their incompetent ‘Plan B’ stunt. It is time for House Republicans to put middle class families first by passing the Senate’s bill to protect 98 percent of Americans from a tax hike on January 1. The Senate bill could pass tomorrow if House Republicans would simply let it come to the floor,” spokesman Adam Jentleson said.
“The Senate has already rejected House Republicans’ Tea Party bills, and no further legislation can move through the Senate until Republicans drop their knee-jerk obstruction. Right now, the Senate bill is the only bill that can become law, and House Republicans owe it to middle class families to let it pass with Democratic and Republican votes.”
Reid has just canceled a press conference today.
He did make a floor speech, though, in which he warned that the fiscal cliff likelihood is greater. “It looks like that is where we’re headed,” Reid said.
Can someone explain WTF is going on?
Both cambers passed bills that the other won’t consider?
We need to bring back forced institutionalization for the mentally ill. Not just to protect our children from school shooters but to keep our elected representatives from destroying this country.
I wish we could have another election today and vote every one of those morons out of Washington and onto the social security disability list.
You and all the rest of America had his chance on November 6. The majority voted for exactly what is happening, and richly deserve it.
This is not chaos, it is the Senate Dems spinning to make the House Reps seems obstructionist.
All spending bill must originate in the House of Representatives according to the Constitution. The House sent bills to the Senate earlier this year that the Dems don’t want to have to vote down because it would make them look bad.
The Senate Dems want to play by non-Constitutional rules so that they can hide their true intentions.
Harry Reid is a criminal, along with every other Senator who has failed to pass a budget as required by law in over 3 years. We should research what is required to conduct a citizens arrest and then go arrest him on the floor of the Senate. How many would it take to do that? Several thousand? A hundred thousand?
At some point the Democrats need to acknowledge the moral high ground on taxes that comes with the House of Representatives, for the Senate is not a true proportional representative body, and the President is one man. The entire thrust of Anglo-American history is that the government has no natural right to whatever tax revenue it wishes, but only that as authorized by the people, in Congress assembled–and the House, in all its flaws, is a truer expression of the sentiment of the People than Senate or Presidency.
Therefore, as the Democrats wish nothing but brute power politics, enabled by the demagoguery of a non-representative media, let the thing burn–or, at least, do not compromise with those who apparenty think they should rule by divine right.
Not to mention the constitutional provision that requires all revenue bills to originate in the House… .
As painful as the tax increases are going to be, sequestration is the only way we are going to get either party to cut spending.
That is what they negotiated, and that is what they wanted. So go home and let it take effect.
You can’t negotiate with people acting in bad faith (which would be Reid and Obama). You can only give them a take-it-or-leave-it offer.
Boehner’s mistake was in not adjourning sine die, that is, no more House of Representatives until the new one is seated next month. Enact our bills, or send the country over the cliff. Its your move, Reid/Obama. We’re done.
If he did, the Senate could object and give Obama the authority to call the House back into session. One chamber is not permitted to adjourn sine die against the other’s will.
The Congress is dysfunctional. The Senate has been for some time. Now the house is out of control. This cannot end well.
I’d sure like to see that dictionary Dingy Harry Reid uses. After “compromise” it must say “my way of the fricking highway”.
If this so called cliff is faux averted, it won’t matter. The banksters and their ho politicians have screwed the pooch for the last 30 years (Thank you George H.W. Bush and Phil Graham for kicking it off). What cannot continue, will, not. Eventually. Let it burn.