Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says that the U.S. is poised to head over the "fiscal cliff," partially because John Boehner, R-Ohio, is running the House like a "dictatorship."
"Everyone knows, including the speaker of the House of Represenatives today, that if they had brought up the Senate-passed bill that would give relief to everyone making less than $250,000 a year, it would pass overwhelmingly," Reid said. "Every Democrat would vote for it, Republicans would vote for it. But the speaker, he says, 'No, we can't do that.' It has to be a majority of the majority. So they've done nothing."
He added that the House is "being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker," and that Boehner is "waiting until Jan. 3 to get re-elected 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. And it was a debacle."
Reid's comments followed Boehner's demand that "the Senate must act first" on legislation to avert the "fiscal cliff."
The AP reports that on Wednesday, President Obama separately called Reid, Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi to discuss the final days of the negotiations.
Shares