As Capitol Hill enters a critical 48-hour stretch, the sense on the Hill is that momentum is gaining, however incrementally, for a supercommittee deal on deficit reduction. Negotiations kicked up a level as House Speaker John Boehner met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Tuesday morning. But whatever deal Reid and Boehner may strike, it will almost certainly need bipartisan support in both chambers. Enter the minority.
The Senate Tuesday night is expected to vote down President Obama’s jobs bill. Democrats aren’t even sure they can get 51 votes, let alone the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. And even if it passed, Republican House Speaker John Boehner has declared it dead on arrival in the lower chamber. So, what’s [...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are not chatty men by nature. Notoriously monosyllabic, either man could probably compete for a world record in shortest average phone conversation. But that doesn’t mean they’re not talking now. Although not fast friends, Reid and McConnell have one of the most functional professional relationships [...]
A day after a testy exchange between Barack Obama and Eric Cantor capped debt-limit negotiations at the White House, Democrats launched a coordinated attack against the House Majority Leader, portraying him as a primary obstacle to ongoing effort to reach a deal to raise the U.S.’s borrowing authority by the August 2 deadline. “Eric Cantor [...]
As the U.S. hurtles toward a potential debt-limit default that would shake the fragile economy, the chasm between the two parties widened on Tuesday, as Republican opposition to tax increases calcified and Democrats bristled at the inclusion of cuts to entitlement-program beneficiaries without “shared sacrifice” from the wealthy. After meeting for more than 90 minutes [...]
Mitch McConnell proposes simply raising the debt ceiling. This is supposed to be some sort of brilliant political move. Obama will be blamed for the ever-increasing debt ceiling. The Republicans will be able to hammer him with it in 2012. Utter nonsense, all of it. McConnell is being too clever by about 300%. The President should [...]
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and No. 2 Senate Republican Jon Kyl want you to know they are taking a principled stand. They are against raising taxes. They will not recommend to their conferences that taxes be raised. They want the Republican base – and particularly young House freshmen – to know they are fighting [...]
Updated 12:30pm Republicans are demanding to know why President Obama isn’t at the table pin the deficit talks. Today, Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor abruptly withdrew from the talks saying they have gone as far as they can and now presidential leadership is needed – particularly on the [...]
While Mitch McConnell is betting that the economy will bring down President Obama, Democrats are betting that Republicans aren’t immune to the bad jobs numbers either. Senate Democratic leaders held a press conference this morning calling on Republicans to include a short-term stimulus package as part of the deficit reduction deal. “Look at polls in [...]
