Day of Seesaw Talks Produces No Accord on Fiscal Crisis
Source: NY Times
In seesaw negotiations, the two sides got closer on the central issue of how to define the wealthy taxpayers who would be required to pay more once the Bush-era tax cuts expire.
But that progress was overshadowed by gamesmanship. After Republicans demanded that any deal must include a new way of calculating inflation that would mean smaller increases in payments to beneficiaries of programs like Social Security, Democrats halted the negotiations for much of the day.
The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, made an emergency call to Mr. Biden in hopes of restarting negotiations, and the White House sent the president’s chief legislative negotiator to the Capitol to meet with Senate Democrats. Soon after, Republicans withdrew their demand and discussions resumed, but little progress was made.
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After the talks broke down over the inflation demand, Senate Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting on Sunday afternoon to declare the issue off the table for now. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said that holding the line against raising taxes on high-income households while fighting for cuts to Social Security was “not a winning hand.”
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/us/politics/obama-accuses-republicans-of-blocking-tax-deal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
Imagine that. John McCain admits that "holding the line against raising taxes on high-income households while fighting for cuts to Social Security was “not a winning hand.” Should we call a press conference to celebrate the fact that a Republican admits that water is wet?
It just continues to amaze me how the corporate media gets away with pushing the false equivalency narrative by saying that "both sides are to blame." I guess it is a great way for the corporate media to give Republicans some political cover for throwing the middle class under the bus to protect the extremely rich.
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