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Rep. Darrell Issa: Senators Who Voted For ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Compromise Were Drunk (+videos)

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By Igor Volsky. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is joining a growing number of Republicans trying to add more spending cuts to the last-minute fiscal cliff deal and send it back to the Senate, joked that Senators may have been drunk when they passed the measure in the early hours of Jan 1.

Responding to a question on CNN’s The Situation Room about why fiscal hawks like Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) supported the measure in the Senate, Issa implied that the 89 senators voted for the compromise because of the late night partying in celebration of the New Year. Read more from this story HERE.

According to this pundit, Senators could point accusatory fingers directly back at house leadership on the drinking issue:

Boehner to Reid: ‘Go F*** Yourself’

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House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday.

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go f— yourself.”

The harsh exchange just a few steps from the Oval Office — which Boehner later bragged about to fellow Republicans…

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Ruling Class on Track to Destroy Middle America in 2013

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It’s time for us in the middle class to get smart – the debt is going to destroy us. And both parties are making sure of this.

I met with Senator Tom Coburn two weeks ago. He suggests that the American experiment could collapse within the next two years. Why? Because the debt bomb is going to explode and destroy every dollar you and I own.

Who suffers? The middle class. We will be destroyed and along with us, the Republic.

Will our millionaire federal masters get real in 2013? Probably not.

Bait and Switch: In Face of Fiscal Cliff, Obama Demands Spending Boost for 2013

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President Barack Obama smashed a completed fiscal-cliff deal with a last-minute demand for increased spending in 2013, according to an e-mail from the GOP’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell.

Under the deal, planned tax increases on middle-class Americans would be cancelled, but Obama insisted on raising tax rates on Americans earning more than $400,000 per year.

“They’re holding that [deal] hostage” to boost 2013 spending, GOP Sen. Bob Corker said shortly after Obama lauded the pending agreement.

“The tax piece is complete and done as of last evening at 1:45 a.m. I thought the entire deal was sealed. Early this morning, the White House called demanding that we also turn off the sequester,” said the email, signed “Mitch.”

The sequester refers to scheduled cuts in spending during the first nine months of 2013. Half of the $109 billion in cuts are to be imposed on the Pentagon.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Approves ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal; House Meets New Year’s Day

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The White House and congressional lawmakers have reached a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” that would delay harsh spending cuts by two months, Obama administration officials said on Monday.

The plan was hammered out by Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the deal, 89 to 8, in a vote just before 2am ET on New Year’s Day. The House of Representatives is expected to vote or take up the deal when it meets on New Year’s Day.

So, technically, the U.S. went over the cliff when midnight struck and some $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts kicked in but a deal could be approved by the full Congress in the next few days.

The agreement, which includes both spending cuts and revenue increases, extends tax cuts on incomes up to $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. Those earning above that would be taxed at a rate of 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Year’s Eve On the Cliff: Lawmakers Have No Bill and No Deal (+Update)

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photo credit: donkey hotey

UPDATE: Deal in the Works?

Senate leaders and Vice President Biden are putting the finishing touches on an agreement to extend income tax rates for the vast majority of the country, just hours before the “fiscal cliff” deadline.

The agreement will extend Bush-era income tax rates on individual income up to $400,000 and on family income up to $450,000, according to a senior GOP aide. It will adjust the estate tax rate to 40 percent, up from 35 percent, but maintain the exemption for all inheritances below $5 million, the aide said.

GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is engaged in one-on-one talks with Biden, said the tax portion of the deal was finished, and that a broader agreement was at hand.
“I can report that we’ve reached an agreement on all of the tax issues,” McConnell said. “We are very, very close.”

Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, said they would not hold a late-night vote even if tax and spending legislation cleared the Senate, guaranteeing that the nation will go over the fiscal cliff at midnight, if only for a few hours. Read more from this story HERE.

New Year’s Eve On the Cliff: Lawmakers Have No Bill and No Deal

Senate leaders are racing against the clock to reach a “fiscal cliff” deal the House and Senate can approve on New Year’s Eve.

Leaders in the upper chamber narrowed their differences Sunday as Republicans agreed to drop a demand to curb cost-of-living increases to entitlement benefits, while Democrats showed flexibility on taxes.

Yet after months of talks on ways to avoid the fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts at the end of 2012, House and Senate lawmakers find themselves approaching the new year without a bill to present to their members.

Significant differences remain over two key parts of a deal — the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester and the estate tax.

Instead of working through the night, the Senate recessed at 7:27 p.m. Sunday with plans to reconvene Monday at 11:00 a.m., and the House recessed around the same time. Read more from this story HERE.

Death of Tea Party Exaggerated? Members in House Appear to Hold Key Fiscal Vote (+video)

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The Tea Party has had an up-and-down political ride since the movement helped Republicans take control of the House in 2010, but those elected in the midterm elections still appear to wield considerable power in the fiscal negotiations.

The roughly 50 members elected to the House two years ago have been a challenge for the more moderate House Speaker John Boehner since they took office. Perhaps most memorably, many of them refused last year to support a debt-ceiling bill because they said it didn’t reduce federal spending enough.

Just last week they squashed Boehner’s fiscal plan by refusing to compromise and vote on a tax increase for any American, despite the House speaker — in his so-called “Plan B” — having suggested extending tax cuts only for those making more than $1 million annually.

And their most powerful vote might be yet to come, should Tea Party-backed House members reject a possible Senate proposal over the next two days to extend tax cuts and perhaps avert massive federal spending cuts that start January 1.

Read more from this story HERE.

Allen West: Obama in ‘Fantasy World’ in Cliff Talks

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photo credit: gage skidmore

President Barack Obama is living in a “fantasy world” with the proposals he has put forward to solve the fiscal cliff, Florida Rep. Allen West charged on Thursday.

“What the president is proposing is not pragmatic whatsoever and it really is a reflection of him, I suppose, living in some type of fantasy world,” West, a favorite of the Tea Party Patriots, told Fox News.

The president has proposed raising taxes on those earning $250,000 a year in his plan to prevent the automatic triggering of tax increases and deep spending cuts scheduled for Jan. 2.

“We’re telling the American people that they have to tighten their bootstraps, but we don’t seem to want to do that in Washington . . .”

Read more from this story HERE.