Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Angry with Obama, GOP threatens political war next year

bring it! teabags!

By Tom Cohen, CNN
updated 5:11 PM EST, Tue December 11, 2012

Washington (CNN) -- They are losing the battle over higher taxes on the wealthy, so now Republicans are threatening a political war next year when it comes time to raise the nation's debt ceiling.

With cracks appearing in their anti-tax facade and polls showing most Americans favoring President Barack Obama's stance in the fiscal cliff negotiations, GOP legislators are starting to advocate a tactical retreat to fight another day.

Conservative Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, promised the newly re-elected Obama a "rude awakening" next year if the president forces through his plan for high-income earners to pay more taxes without agreeing to substantive steps to reduce the nation's chronic federal deficits and debt.

"In February or March, you have to raise the debt ceiling," Graham noted Monday on Fox News. "And I can tell you this: there's a hardening on the Republican side. We're not going to raise the debt ceiling. We're not going to let Obama borrow any more money or any American Congress any more money until we fix this country from becoming Greece."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell concurred on Tuesday, telling reporters that "we are going to insist that we have another discussion about the future of our country in connection with his request of us to raise the debt ceiling."

Meanwhile, McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday called for Obama to make public the specific spending cuts he will offer in a deficit-reduction deal.

Both complained that Obama was deliberately holding up progress in negotiations by refusing to provide the details of his cost saving plans.

"Where are the president's spending cuts?" asked Boehner, R-Ohio, the lead GOP negotiator. "The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff."

In response, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Boehner and McConnell were wrong because Obama detailed his proposed spending cuts more than a year ago.

He added that Republican negotiators had yet to offer any details of their own on how to raise more revenue from taxes, "and it would be helpful if they did."

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, argued that the $1 trillion in spending cuts agreed to by Congress in the past two years should be counted toward deficit reduction in the current negotiations.

"Where are the cuts? They're in bills that you, Mr. Speaker, have voted for," Pelosi, D-California, said Tuesday.

There's more ..
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/11/politics/fiscal-cliff/