Possible Plan B emerges on ‘fiscal cliff’
Possible Plan B emerges on ‘fiscal cliff’
WASHINGTON — It’s beginning to look like it’s time for Plan B on the “fiscal cliff.”
With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner apparently stalled, the leading emerging scenario is some variation on the following: Republicans would tactically retreat and agree to raise rates on wealthier earners while leaving a host of complicated issues for another negotiation next year.
The idea is that House GOP leaders would ultimately throw up their hands, pass a Senate measure extending tax rates on household income exceeding $250,000, and then duke it out next year over vexing issues like increasing the debt ceiling and switching off sweeping spending cuts that are punishment for prior failures to address the country’s deficit crisis.
It’s easier said than done.
For starters, that scenario has a lot more currency with Senate Republicans, who wouldn’t have to vote for the idea after it comes back to the Democratic-controlled Senate, than with leaders of the Republican-controlled House, who would have to orchestrate it and who still insist they’re not abandoning talks with the White House and that they’re standing firm against raising tax rates.
Assad’s fall may be near, but he has
a few moves left
BEIRUT — With rebels trying to penetrate Syria’s capital, Damascus, President Bashar Assad may appear to be heading for a last stand as his weakened regime crumbles around him.
But the Syrian leader is not necessarily on his way out just yet.
He still has thousands of loyal troops and a monopoly on air power. A moribund diplomatic process has given him room to maneuver despite withering international condemnation. And the power of Islamic extremists among the rebels is dashing hopes that the West will help turn the tide of the civil war by sending heavy weapons to the opposition.
“The West, for all its rhetorical bombast, has restricted the flow of important weapons,” said University of Oklahoma professor Joshua Landis, who runs an influential blog called Syria Comment. “They have not brought down this regime because they are frightened of the alternative.”
There is no appetite for intervening actively against Assad — as NATO did against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya — and run the risk of having him replaced by an Islamist regime hostile to the West. Those concerns have deepened after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and political turmoil in Egypt where a bid to promote an Islamist agenda threatens to tear the nation apart.
Tempers rise ahead of vote on Egypt charter
CAIRO — Waving swords and clubs, Islamist supporters of Egypt’s draft constitution clashed with opponents in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria on Friday as tempers flared on the eve of the referendum on the disputed charter — the country’s worst political crisis since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
Both sides stepped up their campaigns after weeks of violence and harsh divisions that have turned today’s vote into a fight over Egypt’s post-revolutionary identity. Highlighting the tension that may lie ahead, nearly 120,000 army soldiers will deploy to protect polling stations. A radical Islamist group also said it will send its own members to defend the stations alongside the army and police.
The referendum pits Egypt’s newly empowered Islamists against liberals, many apolitical Christians and secular-leaning Muslims. President Mohammed Morsi’s supporters say the constitution will help end the political instability that has gripped Egypt since February 2011, when the autocratic Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising. Clerics, using mosque pulpits, defend the constitution as championing Islam.
Morsi’s opponents say minority concerns have been ignored and the charter is full of obscurely worded clauses that could allow Islamists to restrict civil liberties, ignore women’s rights and undermine labor unions. They charge the constitution will enslave Egyptians.
Critics have raised concern over the legitimacy of the document after most judges said they would not supervise the vote. Rights groups warned of opportunities for widespread fraud, and the opposition said a decision to stretch the vote two rounds to make up for the shortage of judges left the door open for initial results to sway voter opinions.
Cabinet diversity poses a question for Obama
WASHINGTON — The top contenders for the “big three” jobs in President Barack Obama’s second-term Cabinet are all white men, rekindling concerns among Democratic women about diversity in his inner circle.
Now that Susan Rice has withdrawn under pressure from consideration as the next secretary of state, Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts is the front-runner for the nation’s top diplomatic post. Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is Obama’s favored candidate to run the Pentagon, and White House chief of staff Jack Lew is likely to be his next treasury secretary if he wants the job.
“The boys network is alive and well,” Democratic activist Donna Brazile wrote on Twitter after Rice withdrew. “The war on qualified women continues here in DC.”
Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a close friend of the president, dropped out of consideration for the State Department job Thursday. That followed months of withering criticism from Republicans over her initial comments about the attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya — criticism several female House Democrats said smacked of sexism and racism. Rice is black.
Her withdrawal reignited questions about gender diversity in the upper echelons of the administration, a concern that has nagged at the Obama White House for years. The questions grew so persistent early in Obama’s first term that the president invited his upper-level female staffers to a dinner to get their input on how to shake his administration’s “boys club” reputation.
Holiday shoppers may see big discounts soon
NEW YORK — If shoppers don’t show up in stores soon, more “70 percent off” sale signs will.
After a promising start to the holiday shopping season over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, sales have slowed, according to an analysis of data done for The Associated Press by sales tracker ShopperTrak. Worries about weak U.S. job growth and other concerns are likely to blame for Americans spending less.
That puts pressure on J.C. Penney, Macy’s and other stores, which had been offering fewer discounts this season than they did last year, to step up promotions to lure shoppers like Ron Antonette from Long Beach, Calif.
Antonette so far has spent about half of what he planned to spend during this holiday season on gifts such as Legos, a Wii U game console and Apple’s iPad Mini tablet computer for his two young children. Antonette stopped shopping after spending $1,000 over fears that Congress and the White House won’t reach a budget deal by January. A stalemate would trigger tax increases and spending cuts known as the “fiscal cliff.”
“I basically stopped moving forward in buying,” said Antonette, 44, who runs a small public relations business and worries that he might not be able to take mortgage deductions on his house next year. “I feel like we’re in financial limbo.”
By wire sources