Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell says his party has “bent over backwards… stepped way, way out of our comfort zone,” in negotiations with Democrats over taxes and spending. And now a year-end deadline looms.
“Here we are, once again, at year’s end, staring at a crisis that we should have dealt with months ago,” the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor this afternoon.
“Republicans aren’t about to write a blank check for anything Senate Democrats put forward just because we stand at the edge of a cliff,” he said. “Hopefully there is still time for an agreement of some time that spares taxpayers from a wholly, wholly preventable tax crisis.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had targeted House Speaker John Boehner with his criticism this morning, had a response for McConnell: Boehner, most interested in re-election as speaker, is the one standing in the way.
“The president campaigned on raising taxes on people making more than $200,000 a year… He won on this issue,” Reid said. “I would be most happy to move on something” that McConnell and Boehner would support — questioning whether Boehner and McConnell are even speaking with one another. “You can’t legislate with yourself. We have nobody to work with.”
