Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appealed directly to Vice President Biden Sunday to try to break an impasse in negotiations over a last-ditch deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” as Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid stepped back from talks.
McConnell came to the Senate floor and announced he’d reached out directly to the White House for help shortly after Democratic aides said negotiations between McConnell (R-Ky.) and Reid (D-Nev.) had suffered a “major setback.”
Democrats said Republicans had demanded a politically contentious reduction in Social Security benefits in exchange for President Obama’s request to extend emergency unemployment benefits and cancel deep cuts to the Pentagon and other agency budgets. A Democratic aide close to the talks described the request as a “poison pill.”
But when he spoke on the Senate floor Sunday afternoon, Reid said McConnell has been negotiating in “absolutely good faith.” Reid seemed to suggest that the stalemate was the fault of Democrats and the White House, who had been unable to produce a counter-offer to a proposal McConnell delivered to Reid’s office Saturday evening — nearly 19 hours earlier.
“I have had a number of conversations with the president, and at this stage we’re not able to make a counter-offer,” Reid said, adding of McConnell’s talks with Biden: “I wish them well.”
Biden has not been involved in the talks to this point, but he and McConnell have a long history of working together to break difficult legislative logjams. Senior Republican aides said McConnell decided to turn to Biden after it became apparent that aides to Reid were slow-walking the negotiations.
McConnell presented Reid with his first proposal Friday evening. Democrats then waited until 3 p.m. Saturday to respond and, after a flurry of activity Saturday evening, went dark after receiving McConnell’s latest proposal at 7:10 p.m.
Most, if not all, of the GOP proposals sought to change the measure of inflation for Social Security, senior Republican aides said, adding that Democrats had not indicated until Sunday that it was a deal-breaker.
“There’s no single issue that remains an impossible sticking point,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “The sticking point appears to be the willingness and interest or frankly the courage to close the deal. I want everyone to know, I’m willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner.”
The abrupt developments in negotiations came after a brief interlude of unusual optimism.
The Democratic aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations, said Democrats had shown flexibility over the weekend on the major sticking points involving taxes. They had not ruled out maintaining the tax on inherited estates at the current low rate, as Republicans prefer. And they had been open to a deal that would allow taxes to rise on many fewer wealthy households than Obama had proposed. Republicans were seeking tax increases only on income higher than $400,000 or $500,000 a year, while Obama wanted to set the threshold at $250,000 a year.
Senate negotiators search for deal to avoid the ‘fiscal cliff’
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Senate negotiators search for deal to avoid the ‘fiscal cliff’
