Last Minute Fiscal Cliff Deal Emerging
With less than twelve hours to go before the end of the year, it would appear that agreement is close on a deal that would avoid the largest part of the so-called Fiscal Cliff:
Most of the world is counting down to a midnight New Year’s celebration while Congress continues to watch the clock and count down to another deadline, despite the efforts of lawmakers to avert the ” fiscal cliff.”
And as President Obama is set to urge negotiators to focus on the middle-class, CBS News has learned that there’s been agreement on one of the major hangups to a deal.
Multiple congressional sources tell CBS News that the two sides have agreed on an income threshold for the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans: $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for families. For weeks, Democrats have pushed for letting the cuts expire for those making over $200,000 and families making over $250,000 while Republicans have wanted to renew the cuts for all Americans, including the wealthiest.
Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have been the key negotiators over the past 24 hours and the movement on taxes represents a huge step forward in the talks.
Other items that could be included in a deal include an extension of unemployment benefits and reimbursement rates for doctors who treat Medicare patients. As both of those items are costly, Republicans are worried that the new deal could raise the deficit instead of cutting it.
Of course this leaves major issues such as the debt ceiling and the sequestration cuts unresolved, and merely guarantees that we’ll see another debacle like this in two or three months time. But, hey, we’ll be needing something to entertain us about then anyway.
People who earn $400,000 a year are middle class? Congresspeople live in a bubble.
The House isn’t going to vote tonight.
And cue the GOP congress critters going full emo and blowing up any deal ‘because Obama was mean to them’ in 3, 2, 1…
And oh, look! Sen. McCain, former POW, war hero, long-term legislator and thin-skinned concern troll from Arizona playing the ‘hurt fee-fees’ card when the President complains about the least productive US Congress *ever*, since the formation of the country.
@edmond: In New york city probably.
@matt: Oh for god’s sake really you’re going to down-vote a simple statement? The cost of living in New York City is substantially higher then small town Ohio.
@matt:
I will when it’s false.
The median household income in New York City is approximately $56,000/year, compared to $48,000/year in Ohio. A household earning $400,00/year in New York has over seven times the average income of a typical NYC household. It is nowhere near close to middle class.
@matt: @Rafer Janders: I think Obama comes out ahead in this compromise, precisely because $250,000 does indeed seem like a middle class income to many metropolitan Democrats. At $400,000, though, it’s a much harder argument to make. Granted, a kid right out of Harvard Law might be making that in a big firm. But it’s still very high income even in Manhattan, Boston, LA, or DC.
“I think Obama comes out ahead in this compromise, precisely because $250,000 does indeed seem like a middle class income to many metropolitan Democrats…”
Actually Obama loses again because he reinforced the Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions that he is a weak, ineffective negotiator who will not drive a hard bargain even when he holds all the winning cards. He is in for a long, hard four years and he’s making the country pay for his own shortcomings. We have a rabid irrational right wing getting just about everything they want from a spineless, vacillating executive who dreams of being crowned as a “post partisan leader” by David Brooks.
@James Joyner:
A “kid” (actually, a 25 year old adult with a doctor of law degree) right out of HLS and working at a big New York firm will be making approximately $165,000/year.
@James Joyner:
Maybe inside the Beltway bubble you inhabit, but otherwise It really doesn’t. I’m a metropolitan Democrat who makes more than that, and I know I’m not middle class.
And it can’t really seem like a middle class income to “many” Democrats, because there aren’t many Democrats who make that much in the first place. Only 2% of all households in the US have incomes exceeding $250,000. So 98% of Democrats make less than that, and are well aware that $250K is actually more than a middle class income.
All cities where the median household income is in the $50,000 to $60,000/year range, and where $400,000 is seven and a half to eight times the average.
@Rafer Janders:
To expand on that, $400,000 a year is partner-level compensation. Associates don’t make that much.
@Rafer Janders: I thought we were talking about household income not individual.