By Susan Duclos
Amusing that when Obama is busy giving softball interviews blaming Republicans for the lack of progress on the fiscal cliff negotiations, what receives far less attention and barely even a mention by the liberal media is Harry Reid's statement that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell "has shown absolutely good faith" in the negotiations but that Reid, himself, could not provide a counteroffer and has proven once again he is absolutely useless.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NEVADA): We have been negotiating now for 36 hours or thereabouts. We did have conversations last night that ended late in the evening between staffs. This morning, we have been trying to come up with some counteroffer to my friend's proposal. We have been unable to do that.
I have had a number of conversations with the president, and at this stage we're not able to make a counteroffer. The Republican leader has told me that -- and he's just said here -- that he's working with the vice president, and he and the vice president, I wish them well.
In the meantime, I will continue to try to come up with something. But at this stage, I don't have a counteroffer to make. Perhaps as the day wears on, I will be able to. I will say this, I think that the Republican leader has shown absolutely good faith. It's just that we are apart on some pretty big issues.
Unsurprising from a Senate majority leader that hasn't brought a budget to floor in three years.
Mitch McConnell then looks to VP Joe Biden to enter the negotiations and now they are hammering out a deal.
Best guess is a deal will be reached, no grand bargain, tax cuts for the majority of Americans will be extended, some odds and ends will be thrown in to avoid the automatic sequestration cuts, then the next huge headlines will be the next cliff, black hole, or whatever descriptive boogeyman the media decide to use to describe the debt ceiling disaster waiting around the corner.
This is not what the White House wanted because now they won't be able to charge the GOP with holding middle class American's tax cuts as "hostage,"and the GOP will use the debt ceiling limit as leverage to force meaningful spending cuts and perhaps then an extension of the rest of the tax cuts that don't make it into this deal.
The kicker here, despite all the noise about avoiding another recession if politicians can pull back from the fiscal cliff, 54 percent of Americans believe whether a deal is made or not, America is heading for another recession anyway in 2013.
The media will milk every last word they can out of the fiscal cliff battle, then turn their eyes to the doomsday headlines for the debt ceiling battle before they finally turn their pens and typewriters towards the upcoming recession.
Of course they will claim it was "unexpected", a "surprise" and no one could have seen it coming, but 185 economists do see it coming and they say these tax increases for the so-called rich that Obama and Democrats are fighting so hard for, will be the reason for major economic damage.
