House to meet Sunday on ‘fiscal cliff’ impasse

President Barack Obama arrives Thursday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He is to meet today with congressional leaders regarding the “fiscal cliff.”
President Barack Obama arrives Thursday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He is to meet today with congressional leaders regarding the “fiscal cliff.”

— The House will hold its first Sunday session in more than two years as lawmakers seek to resolve a budget impasse before at least $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases begin New Year’s Day.

In a conference call Thursday with the Republican leadership, House members agreed to return Sunday amid a budget stalemate that has each side blaming the other.

“We are coming up against a hard deadline here,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said on the Senate floor. “This is a conversation we should have had months ago.”

Today, Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate plan to meet with President Barack Obama, Sen. Dick Durbin said Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker John Boehner, McConnell and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are to attend the meeting at the White House, said Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat.

Whether there will be more budget-related Senate votes before the end of the year depends “a lot” on what happens at today’s meeting, Durbin said.

If Congress does nothing, taxes will go up in 2013 by an average of $3,446 for U.S. households, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington. Tax filing for up to two-thirds of U.S. taxpayers could be delayed into at least late March. Defense spending would be cut, and the economy would probably enter a recession in the first half of 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, who announced plans for the Sunday session on Twitter, didn’t say what action the House plans to take. He said the House may meet through Wednesday, the day before the next session of Congress will convene. The House held a brief pro-forma session Thursday although most members weren’t in Washington.

During Thursday’s conference call, Boehner told fellow Republicans that the Senate should act on Housepassed measures that would carry out Republicans’ plan to avert the “fiscal cliff,” said an aide who sought anonymity to discuss the private conference call.

One lawmaker on the call said several House Republicans agreed with plans for the weekend session, even if only to wait for the Senate to act. The members were concerned that Democrats were winning the public-relations battle on the budget talks, said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity to discuss the private session.

The House last convened on a Sunday on March 21, 2010, to vote on Obama’s health-care legislation. The House has met on 16 Sundays since World War II, according to records of the House clerk and historian’s offices.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the House should back Democrats’ plan to extend tax cuts on incomes of up to $250,000 for married couples. Republicans oppose raising tax rates on any income level.

“We know that the Republicans have buried themselves in procedural roadblocks to everything we try to do around here,” Reid said. “Anytime the speaker and the Republican leader come to the president and say we’ve got a deal for you, the president’s door is always open.”

“I’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic,” Vice President Joe Biden told reporters.

When asked what Obama’s administration is seeking in a potential plan, Biden said, “You tell me what will attract Republican votes, and I will tell you.”

Earlier Thursday, Reid said the budget dispute probably wouldn’t be resolved before Tuesday because Republicans wouldn’t cooperate.

“I don’t know timewise how it can happen now,” Reid said, blaming Boehner and McConnell.

“If we go over the cliff, we’ll be left with the knowledge that it could have been prevented with a single vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

“Nothing can move forward in regards to our budget crisis until Speaker Boehner and [Senate Minority] Leader McConnell are willing to participate in coming up with a bipartisan plan,” Reid added. “So far, they are radio silent.”

Reid accused Boehner of running a dictatorship, citing his refusal to call a vote on legislation to keep taxes steady for most while letting them rise at upper incomes. The bill “would pass overwhelmingly,” Reid said, adding that the Ohio Republican won’t change his mind because he fears it might cost him re-election as speaker when the new Congress convenes next week.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel dismissed the Nevada senator in a statement after Reid’s remarks.

“Sen. Reid should talk less and legislate more. The House has already passed legislation to avoid the entire fiscal cliff. Senate Democrats have not,” Steel said.

Later, McConnell expressed frustration and blamed the standoff on Obama and the Democrats. “Republicans have bent over backwards. We stepped way, way out of our comfort zone,” he said, referring to GOP offers to accept higher tax rates on some taxpayers.

“We wanted an agreement, but we had no takers. The phone never rang and so here we are five days from the new year and we might finally start talking,” McConnell said.

Still, he warned: “Republicans aren’t about to write a blank check for anything the Democrats put forward just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff.”

Obama called Reid, Boehner, McConnell and Pelosi, a California Democrat, late Wednesday to receive an update on the negotiations, said Amy Brundage, a White House spokesman. Obama on Thursday returned to Washington from his vacation in Hawaii.

Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a message posted Thursday on Twitter that the speaker “told the president yesterday that the Senate must now act. The House has already done so to avert the entire fiscal cliff.”

“There’s always hope, there are a few days,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said in an interview. “It’s so important to resolve this that the president, the speaker, Sen. Reid, McConnell, they’re all talking trying to find a way out of this.”

Rep. Steve LaTourette, a retiring Ohio Republican, said the speaker and majority leader didn’t say during the conference call what legislation the House may take up Sunday and on the following days if the Senate doesn’t act on budget legislation.

Obama’s administration is considering options on the budget and other expiring legislation such as extended unemployment benefits, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking House Democrat, said at a news conference.

The House passed a bill in August that would extend the tax cuts for all income levels, and another bill Dec. 20 to replace the automatic spending cuts with other reductions. The House hasn’t addressed some expiring provisions, including a scheduled pay cut to doctors under Medicare and expanded unemployment insurance.

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said in an email that the minority leader “is happy to review what the president has in mind, but to date, the Senate Democrat majority has not put forward a plan.”

“When they do, members on both sides of the aisle will review the legislation and make decisions on how best to proceed,” Stewart said.

The Senate voted in July to extend George W. Bushera income tax cuts for one year for individual incomes of up to $200,000 and incomes of married couples of up to $250,000. Reid said House Democrats and some Republicans would join to pass such a plan.

The U.S. will reach the $16.4 trillion debt limit Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday. The Treasury Department can take extraordinary measures to finance about $200 billion in deficits in 2013.

Typically, that would be enough for two months. Geithner didn’t set a specific deadline because of the lack of certainty about tax rates and spending.

Information for this article was contributed by Roxana Tiron, Kathleen Hunter, Hans Nichols, Richard Rubin, Heidi Przybyla and Derek Wallbank of Bloomberg News; by Morgan Little, Kathleen Hennessey and Lisa Mascaro of the Tribune Washington Bureau; and by David Espo, Alan Fram and Jim Kuhnhenn of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/28/2012

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