WASHINGTON — Lawmakers bickered Sunday over who’s to blame for lurching the country toward a yearend “fiscal cliff,” bemoaning the lack of a deal days before the deadline but bridging no differences in the debate.
With the collapse Thursday of House Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” to allow tax rates to rise on milliondollar-plus incomes, Sen. Joe Lieberman said “it’s the first time that I feel it’s more likely we’ll go over the cliff than not,” meaning that higher taxes for most Americans and painful federal agency budget cuts would be in line to go ahead.
“If we allow that to happen it will be the most colossal consequential act of congressional irresponsibility in a long time, maybe ever in American history because of the impact it’ll have on almost every American,” said Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, on CNN’s State of the Union.
Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina said the rejection of Boehner’s plan doesn’t change the probability that the cliff, a set of automatic spending cuts and tax increases setto begin in January, will be triggered because President Barack Obama’s administration won’t compromise.
“Passing Plan B the other night would not have changed the outcome,” Mulvaney said on CNN. “We were going to go over the cliff then, we are going to go over the cliff now. You cannot negotiate with someone who does not want to negotiate.”
Representative Steven La-Tourette, a nine-term Ohio Republican who is retiring after this session, said on CNN on Sunday that Boehner dropped his proposal because it didn’t have broadersupport from members, and that he is more willing to allow disagreement than his predecessors were.
“The reason Speaker Boehner has trouble managing the House Republican Conference isn’t a lack of leadership,” La-Tourette said. “It’s because we have a lot of divergent opinions and he lets people participate, which wasn’t the case in the past.”
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, a member of the Republican leadership, said on Fox News Sunday that the country probably will go over the fiscal cliff because Obama believes doing so will hurt Republicans.
“I believe the president is eager to go over the cliff for political purposes. He senses a victory at the bottom of the cliff,” he said.
Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, was incredulous at Barrasso’s assertion that “there is only one person that can provide the leadership” on such a matter vital to the nation’s interests.
“There are 535 of us that can provide leadership. There are 435 in the House, 100 in the Senate and there is the president, all of us have a responsibility here,” Conrad said, also speaking on Fox News Sunday. “And, you know what is happening? What is happening is the same old tired blame game.He said/she said. I think the American people are tired of it. What they want to hear is what is the solution?”
No solution seemed any nearer, with Obama and Congress on Christmas break. Congress is expected to be back at work Thursday and Obama in the White House after a few days in Hawaii.
“It is time to get back to the table,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Fox News Sunday. “And I hope if anyone sees these representatives from the House in line shopping or getting their Christmas turkey, they wish them a merry Christmas, they’re civil, and then say go back to the table, not your own table, the table in Washington.”
Predicted Lieberman: “We’re going to spend New Year’s Eve here I believe.”
Obama already has scaled back his ambitions for a sweeping budget bargain.
Before leaving the capital Friday, he called for a limited measure to extend George W. Bush-era tax cuts for most people and stave off federal spending cuts. The president also urged Congress to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed that would otherwise be cut off for 2 million people at the end of the year.
“The truth of the matter is, if we do fall off the cliff after the president is inaugurated, he’ll come back, propose just what he proposed ... in leaving Washington and we’ll end up adopting it, but why should we put the markets in such turmoil and the people misunderstanding or lack of confidence?” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga, on Fox News Sunday. “Why not go ahead and act now?”
Obama’s announcement late Friday suggested that a smaller deal may rest in the Senate, given the failure of Boehner’s option in the House.
“The ball is now clearly with the Senate,” said Lieberman.
He said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky “have the ability to put this together again and pass something. It won’t be a big, grand bargain to take care of the total debt, but they can do some things that will avoid the worst consequences going over the fiscal cliff.”
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said on CBS’ Face the Nation that she expects “it is going to be a patch because in four days we can’t solve everything.”
Both Obama and Boehner have offered concessions in talks between the two, both in person and by telephone, since Dec. 5. Both were offering a cut in taxes for most Americans, an increase for a relative few and cuts of about $1 trillion in spending over a year. Also included was a scaling back of future cost-of-living increasesfor Social Security recipients - a concession on the president’s part as much as agreeing to higher tax rates was for the speaker.
Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press and by Jeff Kearns of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/24/2012