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Lawmakers Slag in Reaching ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Tuesday that he is disappointed that there has been “little progress” among Democratic and Republican lawmakers as they try to reach a deal to avoid the year-end “fiscal cliff.”

The Senate Majority Leader, told reporters that not much headway has been made since congressional leaders met with President Barack Obama on Nov. 16.

“They talked some happy talk about doing revenues, but we only have a couple weeks to get something done,” Reid said about Democrats’ negotiations with Republicans. “So we have to get away from the happy talk and start talking about specific things.”

“This topic was perhaps the most debated, the most discussed, the most analyzed, for a year,” Carney told reporters on Tuesday, adding that the election result showed Americans supported Obama’s approach.

“To suggest that we should, now that the election’s over, stop talking to the American people about these vital issues is, I think, bad advice,” Carney said.

Reid also expressed optimism that lawmakers will reach a deal to avoid plunging off the fiscal cliff, a convergence of an estimated $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts that threatens to trigger another recession. “I’m extremely hopeful, and I do not believe that the Republicans are going to allow us to go over the cliff,” Reid said.

The White House said Tuesday that the president intends to hold a series of events aimed at building support for his approach to avoid across-the-board tax increases and steep spending cuts in defense and domestic programs. Obama will meet with small business owners at the White House on Tuesday and with middle-class families on Wednesday, according to the AP.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, expressed dismay in President Obama’s actions and tactics, telling reporters on Tuesday that ‘‘rather than sitting down with lawmakers of both parties and working out an agreement, he’s back out on the campaign trail, presumably with the same old talking points we’re all familiar with.’’

‘‘If the president wants a solution to the challenges of the moment, the people he needs to be talking to are the members of his own party, so he can convince them of the need to act,’’ McConnell, said.

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