Stuck in a "fiscal cliff" stalemate, trust nearing tatters, President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans changed the game after Christmas. It took the rekindling of an old friendship between Vice President Joe Biden and GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell, an extraordinary flurry of secret offers, a pre-dawn Senate vote on New Year's Day and the legislative muscling that defines Washington on deadline.
The House, despite Republican resistance, passed the Senate bill late Tuesday, sending the measure to Obama for his signature.
How the final days of private negotiations pulled the country back from the precipice of the fiscal cliff marked a rare moment of bipartisanship for a divided government. Several officials familiar with talks requested anonymity to discuss them because they were not authorized to discuss the private details publicly.
Obama, having cut short his Christmas vacation in Hawaii, huddled with congressional leaders Friday afternoon at the White House. Talks between the president and House Speaker John Boehner had failed, so Obama put the fate of the fiscal cliff in the hands of McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
McConnell made the first move. The Kentucky Republican proposed a plan late Friday night that would extend tax cuts expiring Jan. 1 on family income up to $750,000 a year, according to officials. He also wanted to keep tax rates on wealthy estates at 35 percent, slow the growth of Social Security cost-of-living increases, and pay for an offset of the sequester — Congress's term for across-the-board spending cuts __ by means-testing Medicare. His offer did not include the extension of unemployment benefits Obama had demanded.
