Leave it to the house right up until the deadline, and you figure enough democrats and republicans come together to send it across to the white house. Stephen dennis, thank you so much for your time. Absolutely. Here are president obamas remarks from the white house earlier today. Afterwards, we will hear from senators reid and mcconnell from the senate floor. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] good afternoon, everybody. For the past couple of months, i have been working with leaders of both parties to try to forge an agreement that would grow our economy and shrink the deficit, a balanced plan that would cut spending in a responsible way but also ask wealthy americans to pay more and protect our middleclass and everyone striving to get into the middle class. I want to get this done. It is the right thing to do for our families, businesses, and our economy, but the hour for immediate action is here. It is now. We are at the point where in four days every americans tax rates are scheduled to go up by law. Every americans paychecks will get considerably smaller. That would be the wrong thing to do for our economy, it would be bad for middleclass families, and it would be bad for businesses that depend on family spending. Congress can prevent it if they act right now. I just had a good and constructive discussion here at the white house with leadership about how to prevent the tax hike on the middle class. We may reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time. Senators reid and mcconnell are working on such an agreement as we speak, but if an agreement is not reached in time between senator reid and senator mcconnell, then i will urge senator reid to bring to the floor a basic package for an up or down vote to protect the middle class from an income tax hike, extends the vital lifeline of Unemployment Insurance to 2 million americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future cooperation on more Economic Growth and deficit reduction. I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities as long as those leaders allow it to come to a vote. If members of the house or senate want to vote no, they can, but we shall let everybody vote. That is the way this is supposed to work. If you can get a majority in the house and in the senate, then we should be able to pass the bill. The American People are watching what we do. Their patience is already thin. This is deja vu all over again. America wonders why it is that in this town you cannot get stuff done in an organized timetable. Everything always has to wait until the last minute. We are at the last minute. The American People are not going to have any patients for a politically selfinflicted wound to our economy. Not right now. The economy is growing, but sustaining that will require elected officials to do their jobs. The Housing Market is recovering, but that could be impacted if folks are seeing smaller paychecks. The Unemployment Rate is the lowest it has been since 2008. You are seeing businesses and consumers hold back because of the dysfunction they see in washington. Economists, Business Leaders think we are poised to grow in 2013 as long as politics in washington do not get in the way of americas progress. Weve got to get this done. I want to repeat we had a constructive meeting today. Senators reid and mcconnell are discussing a potential agreement or we can get a bipartisan bill out of the senate over to the house and done in a timely fashion so we met the december 31 deadline. Given how things have been working in this town, we always have to wait and see until it actually happens. The one thing the American People should not have to wait and see is some sort of action, so if we do not see an agreement between the two leaders in the senate, i expect a bill to go on the floor i have asked senator reid to do this put a bill on the floor of that make sure taxes on the middle class does not go up, that Unemployment Insurance is available for 2 million people, and it lays the groundwork for additional deficit reduction and Economic Growth steps that we can take in the new year. Let us not miss this deadline. That is the bare minimum we should be able to get done. It should not be hard since democrats and republicans say they do not want to see taxes go up on middleclass families. I have to repeat outside of washington, nobody understands how it is that this seems to be a repeat pattern over and over again. Ordinary folks they do their jobs. They meet deadlines. They sit down and they discuss things and then things happen. If there are disagreements, they sort through the disagreements. The notion that our elected leadership cannot do the same thing is mindboggling to them. It needs to stop. I am modestly optimistic that an agreement can be achieved. Nobody will get 100 of what they want. Let us make sure that middle class families and the American Economy and the World Economy are not adversely impacted because people cannot do their jobs. Thank you very much, everybody. Now Senate Majority leader and Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell talk about a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. They spoke on the senate floor after a meeting at the white house. I talked to the republican leader generally, everyone knows we have been to the white house, we have had a constructive meeting. We hope that something positive will come from that. The republican leader and i and our staffs are working to see what we can come up with. We should not take a long time to do that. It would be in everybodys interests if we were not in session tomorrow. It is my plan to come in at 1 00. We have an hour in a previous agreement that we have, an hour of debate on that, we will have a vote. We have another vote that has been set up a simple majority mr. Leader, youre talking about sunday . Yes. For us, we will have another caucus following that, and by that time we will make a determination, senator mcconnell and i, whether we can do something on the floor in addition. I think we need that time to have everybody step back a little bit. If we come up with something that is not that easy, we are dealing with big numbers, and were dealing with something somewhat complicated. But it was a very positive meeting. There was not a lot of hilarity in the meeting. Everyone knows how important it is. It was a very serious meeting. We took an extended period of time waiting for us. Mr. President , i share the view of the leader, we had a good meeting at the white house. We are engaged in discussions, the majority leader and myself, and the white house, in hopes that we can come forward as early as sunday and have a recommendation that i can make to my conference and the majority leader can make his conference. So we will work hard to see if we can get there in the next 24 hours. So i am hopeful and optimistic. I am going to do everything i can. I am confident senator mcconnell would do the same. Whenever we come up with, it will be a perfect, and some people are not going to like it. Some people will like get less, but that is where we are. I feel confident that we have an obligation to do the best we can, and that was made very clear in the white house, that we can do very best we can for the caucasus and the country is waiting for us to make a decision. Both chambers will gavel back in this weekend before the end of the year. Earlier today, harry reid said he will bring the senate back into session on sunday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, and the house will return at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on sunday, with votes expected in 6 30at 6 30 . Ris mccain and carl levin spoke to reporters for about half an hour. Why dont you give them a bunch over here and let them pass it out. Ok, sorry for the delay. We thought we had a vote, but there was no vote. Senator mccain and i are part of a group of eight senators who have been working for about a month to come up with a proposal for our leaders and our conferences, which will hopefully overcome the gridlock that has so permeated the u. S. Senate. The eight senators who have participated in this effort are myself, senator mccain, senator schumer, senator alexander, senator cardin, senator kyl, senator prior, and senator barasso. It is a bipartisan proposal, and we believe strongly we must reform the senates procedures if it is going to do business more efficiently and fairly. There are many parts to our proposal, i would say the key numberone part is to give the majority leader options to overcome the filibuster and the threat of a filibuster on a motion to proceed. That has been the greatest problem around here in terms of working on bills. We cannot get to bills if there is a filibuster or a threat of a filibuster on a motion to proceed, which has happened dozens of times and just takes a week to overcome that threat just to get to debate the bill. We spent days and days and days trying to get a bill to the floor so it can be debated. Our number one goal was to give the majority leader options to overcome that motion to filibuster to proceed, and we have two options that he has under the rules. The new options, number one, would be that there would be four amendments that would be guaranteed right up at the beginning, two for the majority, two for the minority. You would see how that would work. And then after that, those four amendments are disposed of in the order indicated. We would then be right back on the regular order of the senate. Those amendments there could be a motion to table those amendments they could be filibustered, they could be offered side by side to the senate, so the republican manager could offer the amendment and then the democratic manager could offer an alternative to that First Amendment of the republican manager. Then it would go to the republican leader to offer an amendment, and then the majority leader would have the final so called privileged amendment. They could be themselves filibustered. They could be offered sideby side to the senate. The republican manager could offer an amendment and the democratic manager could offer an amendment to that first manager, and then it would go to the republican leader to offer an amendment. Then the majority leader would have the final socalled privilege. We do all this by the Standing Order of the senate, which has the same effect as the rules, but requires 60 votes to be adopted. And we would sunset the Standing Order after two years so we could see how this worked out. There is another alternative, another option available to the majority and the minority leader. Then, it would go immediately to the bill. It would be agreed on by the two of them. In addition to what i have just described, the ways of getting the bill passed the blockages that exist here, there are other parts to this proposal. We would expedite going to conference. All three motions would be collapsed into one cloture, which would last two hours. No postcloture time. We would add nominations, an expedited process of getting nominations directly to the calendar. We would allow the regular orders to apply to cabinet officers. The rule at the District Court as indicated in this proposal their regular orders would not exist up to the point of closure, cloture, but post cloture, would be up to district judges. This is an issue the majority has had to face. Effectively you would say the postcloture part of that, which is so troubling, given that they period would be reduced to a twohour period. We also have a whole page youre on current practices in order to overcome the gaps here on current practices in order to overcome the doubts on the floor. Where the majority leader alerts the senate of his intention and the presiding officer, as he can are under the current rules, would if there are no senators seeking recognition were not in the middle of a quorum call and there are no orders to the contrary then the presiding officer can put the question to the body. It has not been used. It is a way of addressing this filibuster by not doing anything. Were trying to stop out by urging our leaders this is on page 4 to stop that. This practice has been approved for a long time around here. If no senator seeks recognition, then the chair may put the question to overcome some of these filibusters that so far have been able to succeed without anybody talking. We are trying to overcome that and those delays as well. So, we are proposing on a bipartisan basis as a way to end the major sources of gridlock around here. To try to identify those major sources of gridlock and to address it by giving the majority leader the power to look through those blockages and to do it in a fair way by allowing the minority to offer amendments. Again, this is a recommendation to our leaders and our conferences for them to participate in. Of course, senator mccain has been my partner in this and so many other things. I want to thank senator levin, as usual comeuppance as usual, for his help. It has been a pleasure to work with him for many years. Also want to thank senator cardin, senator alexander. We have had numerous meetings. As we have seen this looming crisis appear on the horizon. Right now, the countrys attention and that of the media is on the fiscal cliff, and i understand that. Economy of the nation and the world may be at stake here. I think that sooner or later, there will be some kind of an agreement. Will we are talking about here is a fundamental change in the ruling, the possibility of a fundamental change in the way the senate does business peeping basically changing the rules of the senate from either 60 votes, sometimes 67, to 51 votes, which would make as no different than the house of representatives, and of course would reduce us in many respects not to irrelevance in the minority party. Here is the problem. On one side, the majority leader and the democrats are frustrated by their inability to move forward with legislation. Every time there is an opposition to a motion to proceed, which takes days and then they proceed, and that has made the United States congress one of the reasons why the United States congress is judged the least Productive Congress since the year 1947. So, understandably the majority is frustrated with their inability to move legislation. On the other hand, the republicans, the minority in this case, are frustrated by our inability to propose amendments that will be voted on. Now there has been a new phenomenon in recent years, the years that senator levin and i have been in the senate, and that is called going up the tree. Filling up the tree. That means no amendments are allowed. That is what that means keeping no amendments are allowed. Then it is an everyday occurrence. Almost routinely, with rare exceptions. On one hand, the majority understandably is terribly frustrated because they cannot move legislation. And we, the minority in this case we are not always going to be the minority, we know are frustrated by the fact we are unable to get amendments and issues that are important to us debated and voted on. So, that is your gridlock. And all of us are totally frustrated with this gridlock. But we have shown from time to time, as we did with the Defense Authorization bill, that with the agreement between parties, not resorting to rules bytes, rules, with agreement between parties you can move forward with legislative provisions, which we are about to do here. But the majority legislation is being blocked, and once the legislation is brought forward, there is an inability to bring that legislation to a conclusion and final vote. So, there is enormous frustration of the majority. The ones who are pushing this, i might point out, basically want to have a 51vote rule be the governing principle. Most of them honestly have never been in the minority. Those who have been in both majority and minority are the most reluctant to see this. So the majority leader senator reid feels very strongly the frustration. We understand that frustration. And there is the possibility that on january 3, the United States senate then a parliamentarian would overrule and it would require 51 votes to change the votes of the senate. That, my friends, would be a disaster leading to the destruction of the unique aspect of the United States senate as envisioned by our founding fathers. I also want to point out, i think that senator rudman senator levin described very well bringing up legislation and all of that with the hand out here. But i also want to point out that the practices of the senate have been abused. Senators now can call from their home state and stop progress on the floor of the senate. That cannot happen anymore. That cannot happen. If a senator was to block legislation, he or she should go to the floor of the senate and be there for that objection. And if there is no one on the floor to object and the senate is in session, the president of the senate should say, i move the bill. Call for a vote. That is the way the senate is supposed to function. And it is not any more. So, we are not only proposing this Standing Order, which brings about two different options that the majority leader, in agreement with the minority leader, could implement, but we are also destroying the practices of the senate that are the rules of the senate restoring the practices of the senate that are the rules of the senate. Again, i want to thank senator 11. These are proposals. It will really be up to negotiations between senator reid and senator mcconnell. I really do not think most of us who have been up here for awhile want to see a Nuclear Situation where 51 votes could basically govern the way the United States senate functions. So, we are hopeful, both of us. We have greeted our respective caucuses at lunch today. Concerns were raised. We had a vigorous discussion. Senator levins caucus was somewhat more vigorous than mine. We did have a vigorous discussion and hopefully this will prevent us from going over to 51 votes on january 3. Two comments. The current rule would not be amended. We would have a Standing Order which has the same effect as a rule to put in place to procedures which i have outlined. Two