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Obama to meet with top congressional Democrats and Republicans in bid to avert ‘fiscal cliff’
Boehner countered with his own plan to let taxes rise for anyone earning more than US$1 million, but even that was too far for conservative House Republicans who rebelled and doomed the bill last week.
Top Senate leaders said they remain ready to seek a last-minute agreement. Yet there was no legislation pending and no sign of negotiations in either the House or the Senate on a bill.
Public opinion has sagged under the weight of the negotiations. Consumer confidence fell to its lowest monthly level since August, largely on concerns over the fiscal cliff, the Conference Board reported Thursday.
The market was glum, with stocks falling for the fourth day in a row amid the stalled negotiations and a report that consumer confidence had plunged to its lowest level since August.
In addition, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Wednesday that the government would hit its borrowing limit on Monday, the final day of the year. He said he would take “extraordinary measures as authorized by law” to postpone a government default. But he said uncertainty over the outcome of the fiscal cliff negotiations made it difficult to determine how much time those measures would buy.
Geithner’s news on the government about to hit its US$16.4 trillion borrowing limit has brought more pressure to the process. Obama wants an increase in the borrowing limit as part of any agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff, but Republicans want concessions in return.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
