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Fiscal cliff fracas: from smiles to distrust to rancour

REUTERS, Washington
IT began so optimistically. On November 16, after their first "fiscal cliff" session with President Barack Obama, the four leaders of Congress had stood in the driveway of the White House shoulder-to-shoulder for what is a rare photo these days, Republicans and Democrats together, smiling.
There they were at the microphone, talking about a "framework" for tax reform and deficit reduction.
In hindsight, the shot of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — the Republicans — with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - the Democrats - seems like an old family photo, before things went bad.
From that day on the driveway, things went downhill, rather quickly.
There was a feeling on both sides that the other was not acting seriously to avert the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts that were set to occur at the beginning of this month. That was inflamed by public comments from ranking Republicans and Democrats, poisoning the atmosphere.
Many lawmakers and their aides fear that things may get more toxic through a series of bitter struggles expected in the next few months over the nation's debt and deficit burdens — fights not just between the parties but within them, and between the White House, the Senate and the House.
At stake is not only the US government's ability to get its finances under control but whether it might default on its debts, and suffer further downgrades in the nation's credit rating.
While Obama is perceived the victor in the fiscal deal passed by Congress earlier this week, he did not come close to getting the one thing he demanded that could have headed off the next potential crisis: Freedom from a fight over the federal government's debt ceiling, which is likely to occur in February when the TYeasury Department must ask Congress to increase the government's borrowing limit beyond the current $16.4 trillion.
Any positive vibes started fading a few days after the photo. On November 20, at a meeting between Republican staffers and Rob Nabors, the White House director of legislative affairs. Nabors announced that he had a White House offer in hand but "didn't want to be laughed out of the room and implied he would skip it because it was a waste of time," according to one Republican source. The White House declined to comment.
What the White House was offering was Obama's budget proposal from earlier in the year, long ago rejected by Republicans.
A Democratic source familiar with the
negotiations said it was merely an opening bid that should have come as no surprise, but Republicans saw it as a red flag, particularly after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner touted it again nine days later.
Things didn't get better in the final weeks of the year.
At a December 13 meeting between Obama, Boehner and their aides at the White House, Obama spoke for almost the entire 50-minute session, according to Republican sources. They said he warned that if he did not get an agreement to his liking, he would spend the next four years "campaigning against House Republicans," starting with his second-term inauguration speech on January 21.
As far as the Republicans were concerned, Obama had effectively remained in campaign mode after his November 6 re-election, going on the attack in his "fiscal cliff" speeches.
One of the clearest examples of this, occurred at a delicate point in negotiations on Monday, with a looming deadline and the risk growing that the Republican-controlled House would blow up any deal pulled together by the Senate. At a campaign-style event with "middle class" Americans in the background, Obama accused Republicans of trying to "shove spending cuts at us that will hurt seniors, or hurt students or hurt middle-class families."
The move angered House Republicans who were already divided on how to proceed, leading to more bad blood. Republican Senator John McCain responded in the Senate, wondering "whether the president really wants this issue resolved." The people Obama
was talking to, McCain said, "were laughing and cheering and applauding as we are on the brink of this collapse."
By that time, Boehner had ceased to be a force in the negotiations, thanks to his own miscalculation on December 20. That's when he brought his own "Plan B" to the House - a bill to avoid the "fiscal cliff" with minimal tax hikes on the wealthy - and then had to pull the bill when he couldn't get enough Republicans to support it.
The defeat humiliated Boehner and, by depriving him of the ability to deliver on any commitments he might make, sidelined him in the final stages of the negotiations.
In the final days of the year, Republicans routinely accused the president of bad faith, saying he preferred to go over the 'cliff,' triggering the tax hikes and rattling the markets, because it would increase his ability to pressure them.
The same was said of Boehner by Democrats, including Reid.
"He's waiting until January 3 to get reelected as speaker before he gets serious with negotiations because he has so many people over there that won't follow what he wants. That's obvious from the debacle that took place last week," Reid said in the Senate, referring to Boehner's failed effort to get his own caucus in line on December 20.
He was operating the House as a "dictatorship," Reid added in his December 27 speech, by refusing to allow a vote on a Senate bill to avoid the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts. Boehner was re-elected as speaker on Thursday.