Bring in joe biden, the Vice President called in to help with the negotiations. Maybe we see some movement in the coming hour. A surprise in your check at the end of the week. The mess in washington leaves employers wondering how much they should with hold from your paycheck. The world, stuart was just showing you pictures of shanghai, the world already starting the celebration. The dawn of 2013. Happy new year, everybody. There is a live look at shanghai, china. Top of the hour. Time now for stocks. Good morning. Searching for direction. Not a big surprise for new years eve. We have seen the dow down slightly. The nasdaq is up about 15. We are watching pfizer and Bristolmyers Squibb they just approved a stroke preventing tail. The market for this drug could be huge. 8 Million Worldwide have this disorder. A huge market here for the drug. It is facing some stiff competition. We are taking a look at the markets right now. Bristolmyers is up slightly at the moment. Dagen thank you, diane. We will see you shortly. We are a little over 12 hours away from 2013. Pc is then scramble mode. Richmattson has this story. Rich significant progress in the last few hours. We have the leaders on capitol hill right now. Mitch mcconnell is running. 4 republicans. It is the Vice President for democrats. They are the last few who have closed a budget deal if this administration. They continue to work at that. They continue to negotiate. If you make over, you would see a tax increase. This is a negotiation. Everything remains very fluid right now. If they do reach a deal, then it comes time to sell it to individual lawmakers. Then the house would have to eventually vote on it. Lets say a tax increase, preventing a tax increase, if that something you could support . They will increase taxes. We have voted to not raise taxes on anybody and extend the tax reductions for everybody. That was a bipartisan vote taken on rich hold on one second. We have senator harry reid on the floor. Dagen there is senator harry reid. It is for the date only. They will. Dagen roughly ten minutes each. Mr. President , i was disturbed to read in the Washington Post this morning that some kind of agreements are being made here. Somehow, the democrats have agreed to raise the level. Dagen we will monitor what is going on on the senate floor. We will see if senator harry reid has more comments to make. Rich, my apologies for interrupting you and the congresswoman. I handed off to you. Rich this is where any time a congressional leader shows up, we are all over it. Congresswoman, you are saying, the house has already voted to extend the tax cuts. Tax rates go up for everyone or possibly maybe that five that 500,000 threshold. Is that something you can still support . It was going to be 1 , on the top 1 for one year. Here we are 100 years later and look at the mess. That is why we need systemic tax reform. What people want to see is us putting our focus on the spending side of the ledger. The debt is out of control. A 4 billion a day deficit is out of control. There have to be some spending cuts. You have to address the spending side of this column. You have to address entitlements. What the president wants to do is look at the taxes, generate enough revenue and forget about the rest of it. I do not excel. The American People have had their fill of this. They are demanding we address the spending side. You have to look at tax reform. It actually makes the problem worse. Why would i kick the can down the road and why would i keep all of this that all my children and grandchildren so that their future is capped and traded to the people that own our debt . I think that is your responsibility. Rich eventually, the house will have to get involved in this one if there is a deal. Dagen and there are a number of issues where the two sides are far apart. Keep in mind, the mmst Important Role is to avoid the tax increases. Still some issues before we bring legislation to the floor. Thank you so much for that, rich. We are waiting for some answers to the debacle down and d. C. I look at the nonsense and think the markets have underestimated what could happen to the economy with this delay. They are underestimating what is almost absolutely certain to happen to the economy after this deal takes place. What they are talking about coming to a deal on is largely the bush tax cuts. What is separate from that and what is absolutely certain to take effect is temporary payroll tax cut. If they are going to go off on every worker in the first pay period or second pay. In january, also, we have the taxes for the Affordable Care act. Taxes are definitely going up. Once we get a deal, that is when we will see some volatility returned to the financial markets. Dagen you go through those on higher income americans, higher payroll tax cut, you threshold for writing off your healthcare expenses goes off, you have medical device maker tax, you name it, when i look at this, i only think that this is the beginning of years of tax increases on, not just wealthy americans, but everybody, potentially. Dagen, you hit on two key point there. The folks are underestimating the impact of all of these tax increases, which equates to about one percentage point of gdp. That would be a lot for the economy to take if we had a strong economy. We do not have a strong economy. The other point is, right on the money, this is not the end of the process. The agreement, it is just the start of the beginning. It is the very beginnnng of the process. It will get tougher from here on out. How can they come to any3 meaningful agreement leading up to the debt ceiling. Dagen well said. Happy new year. Enjoy yourself. Have a happy new year. Dagen thank you. We will see you in 2013. Flying the friendly skies. Not so much. The airlines with the rudest workers. You can probably guess number one. We have the list. And he is never rude, jeff flock is looking at what it means for your paycheck as we go over this cleft. Jeff take a look at all of these people right here. They are on the line with employers, Small Businesses, all around the country right now. Big story coming up will be come back. And lots of answers. Dagen it is time to reflect on all you have accomplished. Congress is the most unproductive session since the late 1940s. President obama has signed 290 bills passed by congress this year. This compares to 383 bills passed last year. His Approval Rating currently stands at a nice round that 18 according to politics average. From the youth list to the downright een, a survey from airfare revealed that flyers found nearly 25 of the vote. United airlines coming in second with 21 and followed by alta and u. S. Airways. The social network suspending its new years eve messaging tool. It allowed them to read the messages of private users. Diane, a big raise. That is right. We are watching netflix shares very closely. This comes out after they cut his take last year. The stock is up almost 32 since the start of 2012. Reed hastings is doubling his outlook. Trading is light as expected. The dow is up 11. The nasdaq is up about 22. The s p is up about five points. Dagen thousands of Small Businesses around the country are waiting for the outcome around washington. The results could have a serious impact when it comes to withholding taxes from employees paychecks. Jeff flock has more. Jeff take a look at this Customer Care service center. The calls are beginning to come in. There is, at this point, no deal. At this point, no guidance. We are following the irs guidelines. From the Social Security perspective, we are increasing the taxes by 2 . Jeff there was a Social Security tax holiday for employees. They were paying at 6. 2 . For two years they have been paying at 4. 2 and now it will go back up to 6. 2. Jeff is there anyway, based on what you know, is there any way your employees can react quickly enough to get that in place by this fridays paycheck . It all depends on the nature of the deal. It is possible. It depends on how complicated the deal is. It can be quite a bit. You have a 2 increase that will affect everybody. On the lower brackets, they are scheduled to go to 15 . Jeff at this point, though, dagen, they will stick with the 2012 until they hear Something Else from the irs. That all depends on what happens in washington. Dagen that payroll tax will probably go away. Thank you again. Jeff flock reporting from illinois. Happy new year. It may look empty now, but take a look at times square. It will be packed. Will the new year bring rising gas prices . We will talk to the man who knows it all. Tom close tom kloza. Dagen hundreds of thousands of revelers are expected to crowd into times square tonight. That is where we find lauren simonetti. The calm before the storm, indeed. It is cold out here. It feels a lot colder when you are standing here and not moving. Believe it or not that it has been colder and times square. 1917, minus 7 degrees. So glad i was not alive back then. How are you prepared for this weather here . I did the best i could considering i am from florida. I have lots of layers. It hardly looks warm enough. Where is your scarf . I am from florida, we dont have scars. We were talking about and you were prepared for this, it will be very difficult comp 3 00 p. M. In times square barricades to possibly use the restroom. How did you come prepared for that . I am not joking. I brought a jar. Dagen do not buy a street scarf, they smell like exhausts and hotdogs. Go into a store. Our anchor says try not to buy the street scarfs thought they smell like exhausts and hotdogs. I think he may be desperate. I can do my head from right inside the truck and he would not even know. We have heated seats and everything else. It is a little tip of the trade to keep me going throughout the morning. Dagen lauren, thank you for that. God help us all. Lauren, happy new year. Potentially a Million People in times square. Fox meteorologist has the forecast from our Weather Center. Maria, good to see you. Good to see you too, dagen. Lauren is doing an amazing job. I do not know how she is still doing it. Yes, it will be very cold. Everyone really needs to bundle up. It is 30 degrees in new york city. We could be looking at windchill temperatures at 20 degrees. We are talking about snow today across portions of kansas, missouri and even into illinois and eventually received portions of ohio. The snow can still be coming down even during the midnight hour tonight. You will need umbrellas. You are talking rain across western portions of kentucky and that would be freezing rain into some spots. That is very dangerous. Otherwise across parts of oklahoma and southern oklahoma, it is just plain old rain across many of those areas. For tonight, at midnight, there were fireworks will be going off. Grab a clear umbrella so you can actually see. Your current temperature is 11 in minneapolis. 32 degrees right now in new york city. Of course, in the northeast, you factor in that wind and it feels colder. 12 degrees is what it feels like right now in burlington, vermont. Dagen because it is new years eve, that dress looks great. Why because it is new years eve . Dagen you are right. I would say it every day. Maria, thank you very much for that. If you are looking to continue the new years party after new years eve, one london newspaper is clogging away. It is compiling a list of the worlds busiest destinations. Cancun, no surprise, made the top of the list. The capitol hill shutdown now in its final hours. We have the latest from d. C. Those lower gas prices you have seen lately at the pump, they could be around for a while. Tom kloza is coming up. Here are some winners on the s p. The biggest winner of the year pulled the. Dagen the final hours before the deadline. Struggling to find some answers to the debt crisis. These lower prices we have seen recently that the around at the gas station. The top selling ccr for 2012 was the ford focus. We have some of the new hot models for 2013. Bottom of the hour, stocks now and every 15 minutes. We have the nasdaq up by 17. It is a Light Trading day, as you expect, on new years eve. This is a mover this morning. You can take a look at how this is affecting the stock site now. It is up about 20 on the day. Dagen thank you so much. We are heading into the final hours before the fiscal cliff arrives. Lets send it down to peter barnes. Where is Mitch Mcconnell and harry reid, what is he up to . Mitch mcconnell is chatting with Vice President biden. He has been tasked over here to try to find some sort offdeal, some sort of agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff. They have a lot of history together. Twentythree years in the senate together. They have a good working relationship. People call biden the mcconnell whisper around here. They are able to at least talk and get things done. They have been key players in the last negotiation. I have to tell you, dagen, the white house and the Vice President office are not telling anything about the talks. Harry reid seems to be on the sidelines right now. Dagen the idea of Mitch Mcconnell in the Vice President whispering to one another in each others ears, just, well, leaves me with no words. [ laughter ] i think i should end it there before i embarrass myself. That is okay. The horse whisperer, the mcconnell whisper dagen the dog whisperer on yes, i understand. Thank you very much. Peter barnes, happy new year. Twelve hours to go and no deal inside. David, your reaction to no action. It definitely looks really bad right now. As if we may go over the cliff. I, you know, other people on this network know more than i do on this. The markets do not seem to be freaking out right now. It seems like they are perfectly happy to watch us go into the new year. Everybody in america will see their paychecks shrink. They will see withholding go up. The payroll tax holiday will end. There probably will not be time enough to make sure that the withholding is according to the new rules as opposed to the old rules. Nobody even knows what the rules are right now. There will be a bot of angry people in january trying to pay back the bills for the Christmas Gift that they got. Dagen what does this say, though, about the inability of the white house and congress to really do anything in terms of tax reform during the new year. Given the divisions we have seen just in the election. Even he has talked about some sort of tax reform. He is not the first president to be really bad with this. George bush had a Republican Congress and he was quite terrible. It was basically his way or the highway. With obama, he has had an attitude of i would just stand back and let the Democratic Congress do their will. We have this Republican Congress now, since the 2010 election, he has not done much to reach out or work with them. Dagen is that kind of attitude, how will that get in the way of getting anything done, particularly today . Well, yeah, obviously, if people are trying to vote on a deal that includes a tax increase, they should just keep the rates down for people in the rest of the brackets and let obama have his, you know, you do not have to vote for a tax increase. It happens with or without you. You do not have to vote for a tax increase in that way. Obama has something to worry about here, by the way. The republicans could even lose the next election because of this. He will have to live with this in the history books. Dagen reelection or legacy . Great to speak with you, david. Happy new year. Tom kloza is coming up next. We had record gas prices this year. The average price we paid this year was a new record. Will it be even higher in 2013 . The topselling car in 2012 was the ford focus. Kind of little. If you are celebrating, finding that cab ride home after the party is going to cost you some coin. We are talking about limo service. I have used it. It is kind of nice. Take a look at the treasury markets. The bond market closes today, early at 2 00 p. M. Eastern time. That is what the federal government can do, it can borrow money at that. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods first day of work. And his new boss told him twongs cook what you love, and save your money. Joe doesnt know it yet, but hell wk his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fh and me from the great northwest. Hell start investing early, hell find some good peop to help guide him, nd hell set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isnt rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Man we are rolling. All right, mamas gonna bring it home, amas gonna bring it home. Oh, no man oh, mom aah nnouncer challenge your kids to be active and eat healthy. All right, lets see what you can do. Lets go. Announcer searcwe can for ideas on how to get healthy together. I am Elizabeth Macdonald with your fox business brief. Lawmakers making little progress on our debt crisis. Senate majority leader harry reid taking the floor at the top of that hour to say there are still some issues to iron out. There will be no bearing fiscal cliff. Without the compromise, though prices could jump to eight dollars a gallon. Secretary Hillary Clinton remains in the hospital. She is being treated from a blood clot. She is expected to stay at the hospital for two days while being treated with a blood thinner. That is the latest from the fox business network. Giving you the power to prosper. Dagen how much would you pay to get a ride home on new years eve after partying . It looks like getting home tonight will prove uber expensive tonight for many. Shibani joshi has the details. Shibani if you are planning a big night on the town, bring a big wad of cash or walking shoes. There will be plenty of cars available if you so choose to use the service. They will not be cheap. Sending out an email to customers warning that new years eve pricing is not for the faint of heart. The average surcharge will be two times the normal prices. If you do not want to be handing out benjamin and all night long, you may want to be thinking about other ways to get around. The peak times will be 12 15 a. M. To 2 45 a. M. Dagen third drivers are great. The cars are fabulou