By Chris Frates
Updated: December 31, 2012 | 5:35 p.m.
December 31, 2012 | 3:27 p.m.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell of Ky. walks toward the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in
Washington, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012.
Echoing President Obama’s statement
that a fiscal-cliff deal is near, Senate Republican Leader Mitch
McConnell took to the Senate floor on Monday afternoon to announce that
he and Vice President Joe Biden have struck a deal to prevent tax hikes
on the middle class.
“I can report that we’ve reached an agreement on all of the tax, the
tax, issues. We are very, very close as the president just said,”
McConnell said.
The Republican leader’s statements ratchet up pressure on Democrats,
who are split over how to handle across-the-board spending cuts, called
sequestration, which start Jan. 2. McConnell is arguing that lawmakers
should vote on tax relief now and leave the spending cuts for later.
McConnell and Biden have agreed to raise income-tax rates on families
making more than $450,000 and make the Bush-era tax cuts permanent for
everyone under that limit. And the estate tax would be exempted on the
first $5 million with assets over that amount being taxed at 40 percent.
“A deal to prevent tax hikes on millions of Americans is finished,” a GOP aide said.
But Democrats disputed that, saying no deal is final until there is agreement on sequestration.
“There is no deal yet,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, told National Journal.
A Republican aide said that McConnell and Biden had a sequestration
deal last night that would have allowed votes on two separate bills. But
the White House backtracked when it became clear there was disagreement
among Democrats on how to handle the votes.
On the floor, McConnell said his last conversation of the night with
Biden was at 12:45 a.m. Monday. At 6:30 on Monday morning, the two
kicked off another day filled with phone calls.
"This has been, clearly, a good-faith negotiation," McConnell said.
1. Republicans haven’t conceded anything on the debt ceiling, so over the next two months – as the Treasury runs out of tricks to avoid a default – Republicans are likely to do exactly what they did before, which is to hold their votes on raising the ceiling hostage to major cuts in programs for the poor and in Medicare and Social Security.
2. The deal makes tax cuts for the rich permanent (extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes up to $400,000 if filing singly and $450,000 if jointly) while extending refundable tax credits for the poor (child tax credit, enlarged EITC, and tuition tax credit) for only five years. There’s absolutely no justification for this asymmetry.
3. It doesn’t get nearly enough revenue from the wealthiest 2 percent — only $600 billion over the next decade, which is half of what the President called for, and a small fraction of the White House’s goal of more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction. That means more of the burden of tax hikes and spending cuts in future years will fall on the middle class and the poor.
4. It continues to exempt the first $5 million of inherited wealth from the estate tax (the exemption used to be $1 million). This is a huge gift to the heirs of the wealthy, perpetuating family dynasties of the idle rich.
Yes, the deal finally gets Republicans to accept a tax increase on the wealthy, but this is an inside-the-Beltway symbolic victory. If anyone believes this will make the GOP more amenable to future tax increases, they don’t know how rabidly extremist the GOP has become.
The deal also extends unemployment insurance for more than 2 million long-term unemployed. That’s important.
But I can’t help believe the President could have done better than this. After all, public opinion is overwhelmingly on his side. Republicans would have been blamed had no deal been achieved.
More importantly, the fiscal cliff is on the President’s side as well. If we go over it, he and the Democrats in the next Congress that starts later this week can quickly offer legislation that grants a middle-class tax cut and restores most military spending. Even rabid Republicans would be hard-pressed not to sign on.
What You Need to Know About the Fiscal Cliff Before You Go to Your New Year's Party
Yes, we're going over the cliff. Yes, there's probably going to be a bipartisan deal. No, you shouldn't freak out.
By Molly Ball
Reuters
So, you want to go out drinking for New Year's Eve, but you also want to
know what's going on with the fiscal cliff. (Surely this describes most
Atlantic readers: both fun-loving and well-informed.)
Do we have a deal or what? If we do, what's in it? Is it good or bad?
Here's a quick FAQ to make you sound smart -- at least until the third
glass of champagne. After that, we can't help you.
Is there going to be a deal? What's the latest?
A deal
appeared imminent late Monday, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell declaring shortly before 3 p.m. that the two sides were "very,
very close" and had "reached an agreement on all of the tax issues."
President Obama said earlier in the afternoon that a deal was "within
sight." Led by McConnell (for the Republicans) and Vice President Biden
(for the Democrats), the two sides had come to tentative agreement on
making permanent the current tax rates for individual income under
$400,000 and family income under $450,000, and allowing rates to rise to
their Clinton-era levels for higher incomes. Accord had also been
reached on permanent fixes to the Alternative Minimum Tax, capital gains
tax, and estate tax, plus temporary measures to address the child tax
credit and earned income tax credit.
National Journal's Chris Frates has the details following post.
What are they still haggling about?
The fact that the
parties have agreed on tax rates resolves the No. 1 sticking point up to
now and bodes extremely well for a deal on the rest. But "the rest"
still has to be worked out.
Remember, the major components of the
so-called fiscal cliff are (1) the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and (2) the spending cuts set to kick in automatically as a result of the
"sequester" agreement that resolved the 2011 debt-ceiling fight.
With
the former largely dealt with, the latter is the biggest thing still on
the table. Neither side wants to see defense and discretionary spending
indiscriminately slashed as the sequester would do, but Republicans
would like to see substantially more spending cuts in other areas to
compensate.
How is the president feeling about all this?
Obama gave
a remarkably loose, jokey statement before a backdrop of middle-class
Americans at the White House Monday afternoon, upbraiding Congress for
not getting its you-know-what together on a more overarching agreement
that would more meaningfully reduce the deficit and fix the tax code.
Republicans acted stung by the president's performance, but it appeared
aimed primarily at convincing Senate Democrats that the deal was good enough to support.
"My preference would have been to solve all these problems in the
context of a larger agreement, a bigger deal, a grand bargain, whatever
you want to call it," Obama said. "But with this Congress, that was
obviously a little too much to hope for at this time."
How should Republicans be feeling about this?
As a deal
lurched into view Monday, McConnell was urging quick passage of the
agreed-upon tax components, with spending cuts to be decided and passed
later. That was leading to some grousing among conservative Republicans
who noted, with some accuracy, that when the tax increases come up
front, the hypothetical future spending cuts often have a way of
evaporating. But a lot of Republicans seemed to be resigned to their
fate, like Senator Lindsey Graham, who said on Fox News Sunday,
"Hats off to the president. He won." Graham added, "I want to vote for it even though I won't like it."
How about Democrats?
Some on the left, like Senator Tom Harkin and commentator Jonathan Chait,
were fretting that Obama was giving away the store by not holding to
his initial threshold of $250,000 in income to be protected from tax
hikes. "This looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up,"
Harkin said on the Senate floor, noting that it would make permanent the
vast majority of the tax cuts Democrats fought so hard against when
they were proposed by President George W. Bush in 2001-03. Obama, in his
statement, tried to quell such qualms, talking up the GOP's concessions
and warning of the consequences of the sequester cuts to liberal
priorities like Head Start. "Keep in mind that just last month
Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise tax rates
on the wealthiest Americans," Obama said. "Obviously, the agreement
that's currently discussed would raise those rates, and raise them
permanently."
Wait, don't they still have to vote on this? Why are they all going home? ARE WE GOING OVER THE CLIFF?
Calm down.Yes, the House was headed home late Monday and would not
vote on any prospective deal before the dawn of the New Year.Yes, that
technically means we'll miss the December 31 deadline and "go over" the
"fiscal cliff."
But what does that mean?
It means tax rates have gone up
on the income taxes you don't have to file until April 2014;
it means
the government is supposed to start gradually implementing some cuts to
programs. Both of these automatically-triggered events can be fixed
retroactively by a vote in the next couple of days with no material
effects.
The biggest immediate danger of going over the "cliff" -- which
the anti-cliff-alarmists have always preferred to call a "slope" or a
"curb" for exactly this reason --
is that it would freak out the stock
market. But the markets are closed until Wednesday, and investors aren't
likely to panic as long as it's clear a deal is in the works.
December 31, 2012 | 3:09 p.m.
Updated: December 31, 2012 | 3:57 p.m.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell passes reporters as he walks from the Senate floor to his office on Monday.
It’s New Year’s Eve, the countdown to the fiscal cliff
is on, and the message from lawmakers is a collective "Let’s see what
happens."
Here’s a stitched-together look at how members passed the day:
Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly of
Virginia huddled near one of the fireplaces in the speaker's lobby,
chatting with reporters—it was chilly on the House floor, he said.
Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma talked into a TV
camera near the statue of fellow Sooner-stater Will Rogers.
At the North
end of the Capitol, Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of
Arizona ladled chicken Florentine soup into a throwaway container,
grabbed a pack of crackers, and, when asked whether he was frustrated
about the status of the fiscal-cliff talks, told a reporter, "Don't talk
to me now, please."
So, yes, the mood on the Hill this New Year's Eve is a mix of idle tension and expectation.
Even though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden are engaging in legislative alchemy to negotiate a fiscal-cliff exit ramp and optimism reigns--for now--it's frustration that rules.
"There's only two people in this town trying to solve the problem.
The other 534 are sitting around waiting for somebody to agree to
something in a back room.
It ought to be done out in the open. The
public's business ought to be public," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in an interview.
President Obama said negotiators are homing in on a deal to prevent
across-the-board tax hikes after midnight. Even though it's not done
yet, details of what has been agreed to
began to emerge. That's where the optimism comes in, especially for
members in the majority, like Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
"This is democracy. I'm not frustrated at all. It's democracy, like
Winston Churchill's description of democracy. There are fits and starts.
But we all work it out," Baucus said.
The sourness of being left out of talks is not limited to Republican
senators. Their minority counterparts in the House are left wondering
what's next as well. "Unfortunately, a majority of us are not involved in any of the
negotiations, and we go back to our districts and people say, 'What are
you doing? What's happening?' And we're waiting like anybody else," said
Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland.
While frustration over the status of the talks is common in the
Capitol, the blame for the stalled process lies depends on who's
talking. For Cole, the issue lies in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
"When the president sends a budget up here that not a single Democrat
votes for in two years, then you know we don't have a serious
negotiating partner in the White House or the Senate," he said.
But for Connolly, the issue has been House leadership, which, he
argues, has waited until too close to tonight's deadline to solve the
cliff.
"The whole process is frustrating. I guess I start with being
frustrated with [how] the House leadership here has squandered time.
It's unconscionable. We have been out on recess for 15 weeks since
August. I thought it was a crisis. It's not like we're caught unawares
on New Year's Eve," he said.
The last-minute nature of the talks, say some members, is a symptom of a deteriorating political center.
"It should have been worked out earlier. There used to be the center,
which played a role when we got in these stalemates, but the centers
are gone," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.
Kyl, who's retiring after 17 years in the upper chamber, expanded on
his mid-ladle comments. Asked to gauge the level of annoyance at the
process, he was eager to wrap up and spend the day, if possible, with
family.
"I'm frustrated. We shouldn't have gotten ourselves in this position.
My wife would like to see me on New Year's Eve and I'd like to be with
my family, but it is what it is," he said.
Dr.
Roshini Raj, an attending physician at NYU Medical Center, speaks with
TODAY's Willie Geist about Hillary Clinton's blood clot complication,
how common it is and what it may mean for her health going forward.
By NBC News staff
Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton was admitted to a New York City hospital on
Sunday after doctors discovered that a blood clot had formed, the State
Department said in a statement.
Philippe Reines, a deputy
assistant secretary, said in the statement that the clot stems from a
concussion Clinton sustained several weeks ago.
Reines said that
Clinton, 65, is being treated with anticoagulants at
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. She will be monitored there
for the next 48 hours, he said.
“Her doctors will continue to
assess her condition, including other issues associated with her
concussion," he said. "They will determine if any further action is
required.”
Dr. Roshini Raj, a physician at New York University Medical Center
and a contributor to the TODAY show, says it’s not at all clear where
Clinton’s blood clot is – which is important for understanding how
serious her medical condition is.
“It’s a little murky,” Raj told
TODAY. It is uncommon for a concussion alone to cause a blood clot. More
likely is a blood clot elsewhere from lying in bed to recover from a
concussion, Raj said.
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters file
Clinton,
photographed here on Dec. 6 at Dublin City University, canceled a trip
to Morocco earlier this month after a bout of flu. She was hospitalized
Sunday after doctors discovered a blood clot stemming from a concussion
she sustained earlier in the month.
Related: Hillary Clinton recovering after fainting
Clinton
suffered the concussion from fainting earlier in December. She had been
sick for several days with the flu and had canceled a trip to Morocco
where she was to officially recognize the Syrian rebels.
Brain
injury doctors told NBC News said that although details haven't been
made public, initial reports indicate that Clinton may have developed a
blood clot in her lower limbs as a result of prolonged rest and
inactivity after her recent concussion.
A deep vein thrombosis,
known as a DVT, or a dural venous sinus thrombosis, could be two types
of blood clots treated with anticoagulants, said Dr. Alex Valadka, a
spokesman for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. A blood
clot could be dangerous if it breaks free and lodges in a vital organ,
such as the heart.
A deep vein thrombosis could be serious, but
not necessarily life-threatening, and would require months of treatment
with blood-thinning drugs, said Dr. Inam Kureshi, chief of neurosurgery
at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Conn.
"Usually hospitalization is more of a precaution," Kureshi said.
It
is possible that Clinton developed a blood clot elsewhere, including
her brain. Doctors interviewed would not speculate about treatment or
prognosis for the secretary of state.
Days after she fainted,
State Department officials said she was at home recovering. Officials
also issued a statement from Dr. Lisa Bardack of Mount Kisco Medical
Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University that
provided more information about the secretary's condition:
"Secretary Clinton developed a stomach virus, leading to extreme
dehydration, and subsequently fainted. Over the course of this week we
evaluated her and ultimately determined she had also sustained a
concussion. We recommended that the Secretary continue to rest and
avoid any strenuous activity, and strongly advised her to cancel all
work events for the coming week. We will continue to monitor her
progress as she makes a full recovery."
It wasn’t the first time Clinton passed out while sick with a stomach bug. As a U.S. senator representing New York, Clinton fainted in 2005 during a speech in Buffalo after complaining of a stomach virus.
NBC's
Robert Bazell tells MSNBC's Chris Jansing that it is unclear how severe
the blood clot could be for the health of Sec. of State Hillary
Clinton, given lack of specific information about her condition on
Sunday evening.
OUCH! My Vagina!
This is my second big babies posting.
I adore babies, I am expecting my first great grand baby, anytime. He will be a blessing from God. His name will be Kooper Allen Rauch .
This is my Grand daughter Andi Renee. 38 weeks
Oh Baby! Chinese Mom Wang Yujuan Gives Birth To 15 Pound Boy February 8, 2012
In future years, when he's all grown up, we hope "little" Chun Chun remembers to be extra nice to his mother on her birthday, and Mother's Day, and, well, pretty much every day of the year. Weighing in at 15.5 pounds, the boy may be the heaviest baby in the country's history.
Chun Chun's mother, 29-year-old Wang Yujuan, remarked that had she sensed something was going to be a little different about Chun Chun, who arrived via cesarean section in China's Henan Province, even before he was born.
Chun Chun's father told the Sun that he is thrilled to have a dragon baby, especially "such a big, fat son." Chun Chun is thought to be the heaviest baby in the country's history, but only just barely. In recent years, three babies weighing 15.4 pounds were born in China.
Woman gives birth to 13-pound baby Apr 24, 2012
An Iowa woman has given birth to a boy weighing 13 pounds and 13 ounces — without the aid of surgery. Asher Stewardson was born Thursday at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, measuring 23 ½ inches long. Fifteen months ago, his brother, Judah, arrived weighing 12 pounds and an ounce at birth. (AP)
Yes that’s right, without any sort of medication!
Stewardson told News 8 that she couldn’t talk about the birth of baby Asher because "It wouldn't be TV appropriate," she joked. Baby Asher was 9 days late and was 23.5 inches long. His older brother family Judah weighed 12 lbs., 1 oz. when he was born. Both Stewardson and her husband Joshua were born weighing more than 10 lbs.
Asher sets a record at Mercy, but falls about a pound short of the state record. The largest Iowa baby on record was born in Johnson County in 1980 weighing in at 14 lbs., 13 oz..
Congrats to the new parents!
Big, big baby boy born
(CBS/AP) SAN DIEGO - Doctors told Cynthia Sigler she'd give birth to a big baby boy. But the Southern California woman didn't know just how big they were talking. Sigler, of Vista, Calif., gave birth Thursday to her son Jayden who weighed in at 13 pounds, 14 ounces.
The North County Times reported Saturday that his mom's immediate reaction following the cesarean section was, "How'd he fit?
Dr. Jerald White, who delivered the baby at Tri-City Medical Center, said Jayden was the biggest of the 20,000 newborns he has helped usher into the world since he started practicing in 1961.
Sigler said her own family didn't believe her at first - she convinced her cousin it wasn't a joke only after showing a photo of the scale readout.
Jayden's birth weight is almost twice that of his sister, Jailyn, now 2 1/2. She was 7 pounds, 2 ounces at birth.
Sigler said she'll have to exchange all the baby clothes she bought for larger sizes.
A hospital official was unable to immediately determine Friday whether Jayden was the largest baby ever delivered there. It was also not clear where the newborn ranks among the largest babies also born in San Diego County.
THIS is Niamh, Britain’s biggest baby girl
20th February 2012
— weighing 14lbs 4oz.
She was nearly DOUBLE the average UK girl’s weight of 7lbs 4oz when born by caesarean. She smashed the 12lbs 12oz of Suzie Devendale, who we revealed last week as possibly Britain’s heaviest baby girl.
Niamh’s dad Sean O’Halloran, 34, said: “We were told to expect her to be 10 to 11lbs. When she got weighed, I thought ‘bloody hell’. Everyone was shocked. She was off the charts.”
Mum Elaine Martin, 32, who gave birth at Ipswich hospital, said: “When I was pregnant, I didn’t notice Niamh was so big until colleagues said I was huge.”
Delivering a big bundle of joy at Holy Family Hospital.
Posted:
Feb 06, 2011 11:10 AM EST
Feb 7, 2011 – 1:51 PM A 13-pound baby has been born in a Massachusetts hospital, shocking nurses and doctors and charming family members with his chubby, chubby cheeks.
Meet Jonathan Patrick Rozzi was born healthy, rosy-cheeked and nearly twice the size of an average newborn. He weighed in at 13 pounds, 2 ounces, and measured 22 inches long.
After only four hours of labor and 10 minutes of pushing, first-time mom
Amanda Byron, 21, delivered Jonathan naturally on Thursday, something
she says surprised her doctors.
That's my boy!
Last updated at 22:00 12 January 2007
A baby boy weighing 15lb 9oz has set a Polish weight record for
new-borns. Kacper weighed 15lb 9oz
Kacper Skuski, who is 26 inches long, came into the world in the
city of Szczecin via Caesarian section as doctors wanted to spare
his 45-year-old mother Bozensa Skulsa undue labour with her fourth
child. Her other three children were all normal weight at
birth.
Babies weighing more than 11lb were already a rarity in Poland,
and those over 13 lb were considered a phenomenon, according to Ewa
Helwich, a leading health official specialising in births. Almost
all births around the world are in the weight range of 7-9 lb.
Giant baby who weighed 6.4 kg
Posted onFebruary 14, 2007byJon Mikel Iñarritu
A baby who weighed 6.4 kilograms (14.10 lb) and measured more than 55 centimeters (1.8 ft), was born in Cancún.
His parents call him “Super Toño”. Antonio Vasconcelos -the baby- gained 200 grams in the first three days.
The mother of Antonio, Teresa Alejandra Cruz, of 23 years, is
probably diabetic, because seven years ago this woman gave birth to a
baby that weighed 5,2 kilograms
Sydney's biggest baby
THEY aren't the words most new mothers want to hear but the doctor couldn't help himself.
Bundle of joy ... Allecia and
Sami Klimo with their two week old baby girl Tiarla Klimo, and kids Leua
7, Myka 2,and Marleya 3 / Pic: Craig Greenhill Source: The Daily Telegraph
"He looked down at her and said, "Congratulations, you've just had a toddler'," Allecia Klimo said with a laugh, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Not-so-little
Tiarla Elekana broke all the records when she was born weighing 6.85kg -
just shy of 15 pounds - at Blacktown Hospital a fortnight ago.
NSW
Health confirmed she is the biggest baby born in the state in the past
10 years and one of the biggest ever in Australia. And Tiarla arrived
two weeks early.
"I just don't want to think how big she could have been if she had arrived on her due date," Ms Klimo said.
Ms Klimo and partner Sami Elekana knew their fourth child would be "a whopper" but she surpassed everyone's expectations.
"I
used to hear people whispering, 'Do you think she's having twins' or
'She must be about ready to pop' when I still had a few months to go,"
Ms Klimo said.
Tiarla bypassed newborn clothing and nappies,
starting in sizes made for six-month-olds. After being delivered by
caesarean section, Tiarla spent a few days in the neonatal special care
unit with breathing difficulties because of her size - and even that was
a tight fit.
"She was touching both ends of the crib," Ms Klimo said.
While
many big babies stem from their mother suffering diabetes while
pregnant, Ms Klimo said that was not the case with her. She just "breeds
them big".
"My partner is a big unit, my sister had big babies,
so we just have them big in our family," she said. Sydney obstetrician
Caroline Jones said babies were generally getting bigger.
"The
average size of a baby born today compared with, say, 50 years ago is
quite a bit bigger. Lifestyle and diet are part of it, but of course
genetics are too," Dr Jones said.
Ms Klimo is confident her baby girl will grow into her skin and won't always stand out in a crowd.
"My other kids filled out nicely - I've just got a lot of her to cuddle in the meantime," she laughed
WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Senate Republican Leader
Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor today
regarding the status of the fiscal cliff negotiations:
“My office submitted an offer to the majority leader last night at
7:10 pm and offered to work through the night to find common ground. The
majority leader's staff informed us they would be getting back to us
this morning at 10 a.m.-- despite our obvious time crunch. It’s now 2
p.m. and we’ve yet to receive a response to our good-faith offer.
“I'm concerned with the lack of urgency here. There’s far too much at stake for political gamesmanship.
“We need to protect American families and businesses from this looming tax hike. Everyone agrees that action is necessary.
“In order to get things moving, I have just spoken with Sen. Reid. I
also placed a call to the Vice President to see if he could help jump
start the negotiations on their side. The Vice President and I have
worked together on solutions before and I believe we can again.
“I want my colleagues to know that we’ll keep everyone updated.
“The consequences of this are too high for the American people to be
engaged in a political messaging campaign. I'm interested in a result
here. And I'm willing to work with whomever can help.
“There is no single issue that remains an impossible sticking point -
the sticking point appears to be a willingness, an interest, or courage
to close the deal.
“I'm willing to get this done but I need a dance partner.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Biden
Fiscal talks took a step backwards earlier today when Republicans insisted
on including chained CPI in the agreement. A Senate Democratic aide
told me this afternoon, "We believed it was mutually understood that
chained CPI was off the table for a smaller-scale agreement, and see
Republicans' continued insistence on including it as a major setback."
Democrats held firm, and soon after, GOP members backed off -- at least on this one provision.
Negotiations over a last-ditch agreement to head off large tax
increases and sweeping spending cuts in the new year appeared to resume
on Sunday afternoon after Republican senators withdrew a demand that any
deal must include a new way of calculating inflation that would lower
payments to beneficiary programs like Social Security and slow their
growth.
Senate Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting to say they
agreed with Democrats that the request -- which had temporarily brought
talks to a standstill -- was not appropriate for a quick deal to avert
the tax increases and spending cuts starting Jan. 1.
To hold the line against raising taxes on high-income households
while fighting for cuts to Social Security was "not a winning hand,"
said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.
Imagine that. Republicans were, in effect, arguing,
"We'll raise middle class taxes unless Democrats accept Social Security
cuts." It would seem "not a winning hand" is an understatement.
But
while the GOP's shift in posture helped keep the talks from collapsing
entirely, the remaining areas of disagreement -- estate taxes, the
sequester, extending jobless benefits, a debt-ceiling extension -- have
not been, and may ultimately not be, resolved.
With this in mind, the stage has been set for an interesting Senate showdown tomorrow.
On the one hand, there are the ongoing efforts to reach a compromise.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had nothing more to offer
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), so the Republican has
now begun negotiating with Vice President Biden.
If
they can work something out -- what such an agreement might look like
is hard to imagine at this point -- the bill would be brought to the
Senate sometime after 11 a.m. tomorrow. And if it were to pass, the
House would have a half-day, or perhaps a little less, to consider the
agreement, bring to the floor, and vote on it.
On the other hand,
if no Senate deal emerges, Reid will take President Obama's advice,
bring the White House's original offer -- lower rates on income up to
$250,000 and extended unemployment benefits -- and dare Senate
Republicans to filibuster it.
And what about the House? Leaders in
the lower chamber aren't saying much at this point, in large part
because they have no idea what the Senate will do, but the House is
already prepared to waive
its three-day rule -- the measure intended to give members time to read
a bill before voting on it -- and House Speaker John Boehner has
already committed to both sides that he will bring to the floor any bill
that passes the Senate.
We'll know a bit more by morning.
No fiscal deal Sunday; Senate to return for dramatic New Year's Eve
J. Scott Applewhite / AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, center, arrives at his office in the Capitol as he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, try to negotiate a legislative solution to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012.
By Michael O'Brien, NBC News
After a day of talks that were expected to yield some
sort of compromise on the so-called fiscal cliff, Senate leaders called
off any further votes until Monday morning, just hours before the
deadline that will trigger across-the-board tax increases and dramatic
cuts in military and domestic spending.
The Senate will meet
again on New Year's Eve, the last full day before the "cliff" takes
effect on Jan. 1. Negotiations were expected to continue in the
meanwhile.
A day of wrangling in the Senate came and went without
an accord to avoid the fiscal cliff, leaving lawmakers just a matter of
hours to sort through thorny issues of taxes and spending that have
beguiled Congress for the better part of the past two years.
Significant distance remains between the two sides and negotiations
continue, although the clock continues to tick. Even a simple deal
appears far from certain.
Six
proposals for avoiding the fiscal cliff have shuttled between Democrats
and Republicans as they debate how government money should be used. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
"There is still time left to
reach an agreement, and we intend to continue negotiations," Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced early Sunday evening.
"We're going to come in at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning. We'll have further
announcements, perhaps, at 11 in the morning. I certainly hope so."
As
the Senate struggles to reach an agreement, House members — who were
back in Washington on Sunday — were left awaiting any potential
legislation from the upper chamber.
Reid and Senate GOP Leader
Mitch McConnell had been tasked by President Barack Obama with
developing a bare-bones deal to stave off the automatic tax hikes
following the expiration of the 2001 Bush tax cuts at the end of the day
on Monday.
But discussions between the leaders and their staff
failed to produce an agreement. Democrats said that a main hangup
involved what's known as "chained CPI," a re-calculation of how Social
Security benefits grow in outlying years. Democrats regard that
proposal, which Obama had previously offered to Republicans in the
context of a broader bargain, as a "poison pill" if included in these
last-ditch efforts.
The impasse prompted McConnell to reach out
to Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator who's previously helped
navigate congressional standoffs, in hopes of jump-starting
negotiations. Biden was at the White House on Sunday afternoon.
But
after each leader huddled with his respective party on Sunday, there
were few indications of the type of breakthrough needed to end the
stalemate in the Senate. Republicans, though, did appear to relent on
any demand to include chained CPI in a final deal (though GOP officials
denied they had ever seriously proposed it in the first place).
CNBC's
John Harwood says that those who stand to benefit the most from a
fiscal cliff deal are the two million Americans who would lose extended
unemployment benefits of $300 a month if there is no deal.
"We
have as a conference have come out and said, if that's a show-stopper
for the majority leader, we take that off the table," New Hampshire Sen.
Kelly Ayotte said following the meeting with fellow Republicans.
The
breakdown in negotiations sets the stage for one of the most dramatic
days of political deal-making on Monday, the final day of 2012 and just
three days before the next Congress — which won't affect control of
either chamber but is slightly more Democratic — is sworn into office on
Jan. 3.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had recalled House members to
Washington for a series of rare weekend evening votes on Sunday. Those
lawmakers had conceivably been asked to return to vote on whatever
agreement Senate leaders might be able to forge. But absent any
legislation, which would not come before Monday morning, House members'
presence was largely superfluous.
Obama had asked Reid to prepare
a vote on fallback legislation to preserve tax rates on income under
$250,000 and extend expiring unemployment benefits in case Senate talks
fell through. Democrats showed no signs of backing off that intention,
though it is unclear whether Boehner would allow that legislation to
even come to a vote in the House.
The
President has repeatedly blamed Republicans for the fiscal cliff
stalemate -- and he doubled down on that criticism during an exclusive
interview with David Gregory. NBC's Kristen Welker has more.
"Now the pressure's on Congress to produce," Obama said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," which aired Sunday.
The
hold-up on Capitol Hill appeared, though, to involve several unresolved
issues. First, lawmakers must reach an agreement on the threshold of
income beneath which current tax rates would be extended. Second, they
must resolve what elements of spending — unemployment benefits, for
instance — or commensurate cuts (to offset the cancellation of the
automatic spending cuts, known as the sequester) to include in a final
package.
"The biggest obstacle we face is that President Obama and
Majority Leader Reid continue to insist on new taxes that will be used
to fund more new spending, not for meaningful deficit reduction," Sen.
Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Republicans' budget chief, said in a statement. NBC's Frank Thorp contributed reporting.
Issa: ‘Real accountability’ for Fast and Furious is happening
Two
years after weapons found at the site of the killing of a U.S. Border
Patrol agent were traced to the failed Fast and Furious gunrunning
investigation, a senior House Republican who led committee hearings into
the shooting and the operation says there has been "real
accountability" for those whose actions contributed to the death and
Justice Department officials who failed to properly oversee the
operation.
"Two years after the tragic death of Brian A. Terry,
Americans remember his legacy of service to his country in the Marine
Corps and the Border Patrol," said House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa.
The California lawmaker said
former Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler and Assistant
Attorney General Jason Weinstein both have left the Justice Department
in the wake of the probe and several others have left or are in the
process of losing their jobs.
"Before final closure can be brought
to this matter, the Justice Department must hand over critical
documents showing what it really knew while it denied wrongdoing for
months," he said. "If the Justice Department does not change course and
agree to produce these documents, I am confident the court will rule
appropriately on the lawsuit authorized by a congressional vote that
included the support of twenty-one House Democrats."
Sen. Chuck
Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee,
first began the investigation into Fast and Furious, tweeting earlier
this month that, "Heads are beginning to roll nearly two years after the
Fast and Furious gunwalker scandal first came to light." He noted that
William McMahon, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
official who was in charge of field operations during the controversial
operation, had been fired, and other ATF managers reportedly face
similar fates.
Mr. Grindler, who served as Attorney General Eric
H. Holder Jr.'s chief of staff, announced his resignation on Dec. 3. A
report on Fast and Furious by the Justice Department's Office of
Inspector General said Mr. Grindler received a briefing about Fast and
Furious in March 2010, but the briefing "failed to alert Mr. Grindler to
problems in the investigation."
The report said Mr. Grindler
learned three days after the Terry death of the link between weapons
found at the scene of the killing and the Fast and Furious operation,
but did not tell Mr. Holder. It said he should have informed the
attorney general as well as made "an appropriate inquiry" of ATF, which
ran the probe, or the U.S. attorney's office about the connection.
Late in the evening of Dec. 14, 2010, Terry, 40, a
native of Michigan and a U.S. Marine veteran, was on patrol with three
other agents in Peck Canyon near Rio Rico, Ariz., about a dozen miles
north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The agents spotted a group of five
suspected illegal immigrants, at least two of whom were carrying rifles.
As
the agents approached, one of the suspects fired at them. The agents
returned fire. In the midst of the gunfight, Terry was struck in the
back. Four of the shooters fled, though one of them had been wounded and
was unable to leave the scene. Though Terry was fully conscious after
being wounded, his bleeding could not be stopped and he died in the
desert during the early morning hours of Dec. 15, 2010, while the group
waited for medical assistance to arrive.
When help finally did
arrive, Mr. Issa said investigators recovered two AK-47 variant
semi-automatic assault rifles at the scene. Traces conducted later that
day showed that the weapons had been purchased on Jan. 16, 2010, by a
then-23-year-old "straw buyer" named Jaime Avila Jr. — a target of the
ATF Fast and Furious operation.
ATF officials have said the goal
of the operation was to dismantle an arms trafficking network in Mexico,
although agents lost track of the weapons that had been transported or
"walked" into Mexico.
Earlier this week, Avila was sentenced to 57 months in prison with three years supervised probation.
ATF
shut down Fast and Furious after the weapons were found near Terry's
body. The killing led to public testimony by ATF agents opposed to the
operation, who said more than 2,000 weapons had been walked to drug
smugglers in Mexico, about 1,400 of which are still unaccounted for.
Issa, Grassley Report on Fast & Furious Finds Widespread Justice Department Management Failures
October 29, 2012
WASHINGTON – Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Senate Judiciary
Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, today released the second installment of their final report on Operation Fast and Furious.
This report chronicles the U.S. Department of Justice’s management
failures, specifically finding fault with five senior Justice Department
officials for failing to identify red flags indicating reckless
tactics.
“The report discloses widespread management failures within the
hierarchy of the Justice Department,” said Issa. “The Justice
Department has yet to evaluate these management issues and implement
structural changes to prevent another disaster like Operation Fast and
Furious from occurring. Furthermore, the Justice Department has taken
limited action against these negligent managers.”
“Officials in the Justice Department saw any number of warnings and
some even had the gunwalking information right in front of them, yet
nothing was done to stop it. Countless people may be murdered with
these weapons, yet the Attorney General appears to be letting his
employees slide by with little to no accountability. The Attorney
General needs to make changes to ensure that department leadership
provides oversight of the agencies they are tasked with supervising,
instead of pointing fingers at somebody else,” Grassley said.
Operation Fast and Furious contributed to the deaths of U.S. Border
Patrol Agent Brian Terry and an unknown number of Mexican citizens. It
also created an ongoing public safety hazard on both sides of the
border. The failures happened because of conscious decisions to
encourage gun dealers to sell to known traffickers and avoid
interdicting those weapons or even questioning suspects, all in the hope
that would lead law enforcement to cartel connections and a larger
case.
The first installment of the final report focusing on ATF failures can be found here.
Report Highlights
A detailed account of the interview with former ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson.
The Obama Administration’s new focus on trafficking and targeting of
drug cartels, which led to the strategy behind Operation Fast and
Furious.
Testimony from senior Justice Department officials about Operation
Fast and Furious and the management problems it entailed. The report
finds fault with five senior DOJ Officials for failing to supervise and
for missing basic red flags. Those officials are Assistant Attorney
General Lanny Breuer, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler,
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein and Associate Deputy
Attorney General Ed Siskel. Attorney General Holder’s Deputy Chief of
Staff Robert “Monty” Wilkinson also bears some responsibility for the
poor management that lead to Operation Fast and Furious.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, Associate Deputy
Attorney General Ed Siskel, and other officials from the Office of the
Deputy Attorney General attended a detailed briefing on Operation Fast
and Furious in March 2010. Despite the evidence presented at the
briefing of illegally-purchased firearms being recovered in Mexico and
in the U.S., Grindler and Siskel failed to ask probing questions or take
any significant follow-up action to monitor and supervise the conduct
of the case.
ATF officials asked both the Justice Department’s Criminal Division
and ODAG for assistance in speeding up the indictments in Fast and
Furious. The Justice Department, however, took no action to intervene.
Instead, officials at Department headquarters only showed concern about
preparing for the press impact of the indictments.
Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General Monty Wilkinson
discussed Attorney General Holder participating in the press conference
announcing the take-down of Operation Fast and Furious prior to the
death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Both Monty Wilkinson and Gary Grindler were informed about the
connection between Operation Fast and Furious and U.S. Border Patrol
Agent Brian Terry’s murder. Grindler received detailed information
about the connection. He took no additional action, however, to
properly supervise the operation.
No one at Justice Department headquarters have provided complete and
accurate answers to the Terry family. During their respective
transcribed interviews, Monty Wilkinson stated 38 times that he “did not
recall” or “did not know.” In a similar fashion, Gary Grindler did so
29 times, and Ed Siskel 21 times. In two different transcribed
interviews, Dennis Burke said he “did not recall” or “did not know” a
combined total of 161 times.
Speaker of the House John Boehner, Ohio Republican, walks to a closed-door GOP caucus as Congress
meets to negotiate a legislative path to avoid the so-called "fiscal
cliff" of automatic tax increases and deep spending cuts that could kick
in Jan. 1., at the Capitol, Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Republicans
on Sunday conceded on their demand that any “fiscal cliff” deal trim
Social Security cost-of-living increases, signaling the end — for now —
of their push to reform entitlements in exchange for higher tax rates.
Proponents
said they might try to revisit the issue next year, but senators from
both parties said they were playing a losing hand when they appeared to
be demanding cuts to the federal government’s public pensions program in exchange for protecting tax rates for families making more than $250,000.
“I’m not a fan of affecting those who are currently on Social Security — especially the more elderly,” said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe,
Maine Republican. “That’ll probably be part of a larger debate in
conjunction with the debt ceiling next year, and other issues regarding
entitlement reform.”
Social Security emerged as a last-minute stumbling block Sunday when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,
Nevada Democrat, went to the chamber floor and said he had hit an
impasse with Republicans over the issue. He said his party would
consider cost-of-living changes at some point in the future, but ruled
it out as part of the smaller deal he and Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, were negotiating.
“We’re not going to have any Social Security cuts,” he said flatly.
Deleting
Social Security from the equation means Republicans now are fighting a
strictly defensive battle and the fiscal cliff debate centers around how
much taxes are going to go up, and on what spending will be added —
such as another extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term
jobless.
Some Republicans said the demand was just a bargaining
chip they were expecting to drop, while others questioned whether it was
even on the table.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it on the floor,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, adding that he wanted to save that fight for another day.
For Democrats, cutting into entitlement programs is anathema — similar to the way Republicans see tax increases.
But
in the wake of Mr. Obama’s re-election and Democrats’ gains in
Congress, Republicans have been forced to cave on their tax principles,
while Democrats have been able to hold firm in defending entitlements.
At
issue is the measure of inflation used to calculate inflation. Most
federal programs are tied to the Consumer Price Index, but Republicans
want to use what is called Chained CPI, which would lead to lower
cost-of-living adjustments.
The Congressional Budget Office
projects that would mean a quarter of a percentage point slower growth
per year, which could add up over the decades.
Mr. Obama signaled
early in fiscal cliff negotiations that he could accept using Chained
CPI as long as protections were in place for those with the lowest
incomes.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California disputed the views of other Democrats who called it a benefit cut.
“No. I consider it a strengthening of Social Security,” she told reporters in mid-December.
Democrats
said they would accept it only as part of a broad deal and that the
package being considered this weekend didn’t qualify.
Liberal
interest groups, who had rallied their supporters to call congressional
offices and oppose Chained CPI, cheered their win.
“Today’s
victory shows that activism works,” said the Progressive Change Campaign
Committee, which vowed to field primary challengers to run against any
Democrat voting for the proposed policy.
Deadline is Monday for foreclosure review
Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
10:41a.m. EST December 28, 2012
Millions
of homeowners who were in foreclosure in 2009 or 2010 could miss a
chance to have their cases reviewed for errors — and possible
compensation — if they don't act by Monday.
That's the deadline
for eligible homeowners to request a free review required by a
settlement last year between federal bank regulators and 14 mortgage
servicers and their affiliates. (See list below.) The deadline has been extended three times due to poor response from homeowners.
More
than 4 million notices were mailed to homeowners a year ago informing
them of their right to a review, but only 356,000 had asked for one by
Dec. 13, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Compensation
could range from hundreds of dollars to more than $100,000, the OCC has
said. It is overseeing the settlement with the Federal Reserve.
Requests must be submitted online at the website independentforeclosurereview.com
or be postmarked no later than Monday, the OCC says. Answers to
questions can be found on the website or by calling 888-952-9105.
"The (response) numbers are not terribly impressive," says Bruce Mirken of the Greenlining Institute, a consumer advocacy group.
Greenlining, like other consumer groups, says borrowers may still not be aware of the review opportunity.
Notification
materials — including the 4 million letters — may have been ignored
because they were written in legal jargon, were hard to read and looked
too much like those used in foreclosure scams, says James Carr, a senior
policy fellow with the Opportunity Agenda, a non-partisan think tank.
A Government Accountability Office report in June echoed those concerns.
The
settlement followed a federal probe in which regulators found
significant weaknesses in foreclosure processes, including improper
foreclosure document preparation.
To meet regulators' deadlines,
the GAO noted that servicers had just 60 days to develop outreach
materials. That didn't leave time to test them with focus groups, one
servicer representative told the GAO.
About 95% of the letters were successfully delivered, the OCC has said.
The
reviews are intended to address a wide range of foreclosure errors,
including excessive fees, wrongly denied loan modifications, misapplied
payments or wrongful foreclosures.
Borrower restitution will vary by case and financial harm, the OCC says. It's provided no cost estimate to servicers.
No one has yet received restitution, says OCC spokesman William Grassano.
The
requested reviews are in addition to 159,000 reviews being done, as
part of the same settlement, by consultants hired by the servicers,
Grassano says.
The Monday deadline should be lifted and review
requests should be allowed as needed, the community groups say,
especially since more recent outreach efforts have been more consumer
friendly.
The reviews are separate from a $25 billion settlement,
reached between five servicers and state and federal officials, that's
also meant to address past foreclosure abuses.
In that case, the deadline to make a claim is Jan. 18 for part of a $1.5 billion pot.
Notices went to 1.75 million eligible claimants in September and October, says Iowa Assistant Attorney General Patrick Madigan.
So far, about 43% have filed a claim. Madigan expects the response rate to exceed 50%.
If everyone applied, the payout would be $840 per borrower, says information on the settlement website at www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com.
Under
that settlement, borrowers must have actually lost a home to
foreclosure from 2008 through 2011, had their loan serviced by one of
five participating servicers, attest to having suffered a foreclosure
abuse and meet other requirements.
The servicers in the
settlement are Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Ally/GMAC and Wells
Fargo. The settlement administrator can be reached at 866-430-8358.
The
response rate for that settlement may be higher than for the review
settlement partly because claimants simply have to attest to having
suffered a foreclosure abuse, which could be an irritant such as a
servicer losing paperwork, Madigan says.
In the review settlement overseen by the OCC, foreclosure files will be actually checked for errors.
Borrowers can apply to both programs.
Independent
foreclosure reviews are being offered to customers of these mortgage
servicers and affiliates whose primary residences were involved in
foreclosure action in 2009 or 2010:
America's Servicing Co. Aurora Loan Services BAC Home Loans Servicing Bank of America Beneficial Chase Citibank CitiFinancial CitiMortgage Countrywide EMC EverBank/EverHome Mortgage Company Financial Freedom GMAC Mortgage HFC HSBC IndyMac Mortgage Services MetLife Bank National City Mortgage PNC Mortgage Sovereign Bank SunTrust Mortgage U.S. Bank Wachovia Washington Mutual Wells Fargo Wilshire Credit Corp.
