| To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (42963) | 1/1/2013 8:22:35 PM | | From: Vendit™ | | | | House Republicans move toward climactic vote on Senate's 'fiscal cliff' bill
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/275101-senate-fiscal-cliff-deal-in-trouble-in-house
By Russell Berman, Erik Wasson and Molly K. Hooper - 01/01/13 08:01 PM
House Republicans moved toward a potentially climactic final vote on "fiscal cliff" legislation Tuesday night, as party leaders determined they did not have the support to amend legislation passed overwhelmingly by the Senate earlier in the day.
The House Rules Committee scheduled an emergency meeting for shortly after 8:10 p.m. to set floor procedures for a vote. The move came after a pair of long closed-door Republican conference meetings, and is a signal that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) believes there are enough votes to pass the Senate measure without changes.
Earlier in the day, Republicans said they were considering an attempt to amend the Senate measure, but lawmakers said there was no consensus on what to attach to the bill to garner enough GOP support.
The two choices were: amend the bill with spending cuts — likely killing it for the 112th Congress — or vote to adopt the Senate measure and send it to President Obama for his signature.
Rep. Rich Nugent (R-Fla.) said Tuesday night that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told rank-and-file members, in response to a direct question, that if the House GOP could not muster enough votes to amend the bill, he would personally vote "yes" on the unchanged legislation. Speakers by tradition rarely vote on the floor, and Boehner has only voted on a handful of bills, generally when he wants to show solidarity with members taking politically difficult votes.
During an evening vote series, members were whipped on an amendment option: attaching a $328 billion spending cut to the Senate deal. That measure passed the House twice in 2012 on party-line votes. It reduced the deficit by $243 billion, left cuts to Medicare in place, and eliminated $72 billion of $109 billion in defense and non-defense spending set for 2013. The Senate throughout 2012 ignored this House measure.
When the stand-alone bill came up for a vote in May, it passed 218-199 with 16 GOP "no" votes. In December, it passed 215-209 with 21 GOP "no" votes. Since that last vote, Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a "yes" vote, resigned from the House to become a senator.
Sources confirmed that despite conservative grumbling about corporate tax "giveaways" in the Senate bill, tax breaks for corporations are not considered for amendment. The Senate deal contains dozens of "tax extenders" including for clean energy.
If GOP leaders had found there was more than a 217-vote majority within the Republican conference for the amended bill, they were planning to bring it to the floor. If a majority could not be found, leaders planned to put the Senate deal to an up-or-down vote, members said.
While House Republicans broadly oppose the legislation the Senate passed overwhelmingly early Tuesday morning, many of them emerged from their second closed-door meeting of the day believing that, ultimately, the House would approve the measure without amendments.
"That seems to be the sentiment," conservative Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), an opponent of the bill, told reporters.
Inside the meeting, Boehner told lawmakers "there's risk" in killing the deal by amending it and having it die in the Senate, Fleming said.
Senate Democratic aides said Tuesday the upper chamber would not consider an amended bill passed by the House, meaning the current Congress would close without a deal to prevent a painful combination of tax increases and spending cuts.
The House must act on the Senate bill before noon on Thursday, when the 113th Congress begins. Democratic leaders and the White House have called on the Republican majority to bring the measure to an immediate vote.
“There’s probably enough people here who will vote for it that it’ll probably pass,” said freshman Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), another staunch opponent of the Senate bill. Labrador said "there's no consensus" on what the details of an amendment should look like, and that — combined with the likelihood that the Senate would simply ignore the amended version — would be enough to sink Boehner's plan.
Fleming was even more blunt.
"I would be opposed to the amendment ... because I just think you would just draw this thing out and create more problems and chaos," he said. "Ultimately the Senate would reject it anyway, so I think we need to vote up-or-down on the Senate version."
Fleming clarified that he would vote "no" on the Senate-passed bill.
Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) said the GOP amendment would cut $328 billion and mirrors the defense sequester measure that has already passed the House.
LaTourette predicted that a vote on the Senate bill would not attract a majority of the majority. He said it would probably get 150 Democratic votes and the support of only 70 Republicans.
Boehner could risk the wrath of conservatives if he allows the Senate measure to pass the House with mostly Democratic votes. “He just can’t do that politically,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said.
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| To: Paxb2u who wrote (42967) | 1/1/2013 8:26:09 PM | | From: Keith Feral | | | | I don't have a clue!
GOP dropped their plan to add on the spending cuts and will just vote on the Senate bill tonight. |
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| To: Wayners who wrote (42974) | 1/1/2013 9:04:31 PM | | From: Vendit™ | | | | Fiscal Cliff: Will Stocks Rise or Get Rocked?
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/fiscal-cliff-stocks-rise-rocked-213221114.html
The Senate has reached an agreement -- not necessarily a popular one among legislators, but an agreement nonetheless -- to avoid the tax hikes and spending reductions known as the fiscal cliff. Now it's up to the Republican-led House of Representatives to do the same or decline to sign off unless changes are made, and for the time being it looks like it's the latter.
For investors, though the question remains open as to what that means for stock markets in the U.S. and abroad, being left in this limbo may be the worst possible outcome. If no pact is set by the open of New York trading Wednesday, traders could opt to deliver Washington a loud and clear message about what they think of the intransigence. That means punishing stocks and sending the major averages lower, perhaps significantly so.
Generally speaking, any deal should be a good deal for the market since it eliminates an immediate worry. Getting something done probably beats getting nothing done, for now. Of course, also generally speaking, the fiscal cliff will prove to be only one point on the continuum of uncertainty, and soon it will be replaced by something else. The top candidate for inducing angst in the markets next is whether to raise the debt ceiling, around which the upcoming debate undoubtedly will be contentious. As a reminder, the 2011 dispute over the ceiling was one of the factors in Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating from AAA.
Unfortunately, knowing precisely what will happen once traders get back to work this week is impossible, because try as we might, we still can't predict the future. However, owing to the extensive, months-long build-up to the fiscal cliff, a few possibilities can be considered. Should you want to plan accordingly as to what suits your own gut or level of risk, for tomorrow we may see:
That selling prevails from the outset. If there's no deal from Capitol Hill and President Obama, stocks may be in for an ugly day. Even if a settlement is completed, equity markets still could open down based on the idea of selling the news. One of the many adages about Wall Street is the concept of "buy the rumor, sell the news." Stocks were up big on Monday helped by anticipation of an agreement -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI) climbed 166 points, or 1.3%, the Nasdaq ( ^IXIC) rose 59 points, or 2%, and the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC) was up 24 points, or 1.7%, to end a fourth straight positive year on a high note. An immediate rally in U.S. stocks that carries through the day on the thinking that even if Congress isn't there yet, it will be eventually. Other factors may also be in play, as will be addressed below. Just remember that as soon as the cliff is out of the way, the markets will be worried about something else. Again, the debt ceiling is a strong contender to fill this role. Stocks start with an advance, but that fades and the major markets are negative by day's end. Professional traders and trading programs aren't necessarily going to let any early profits run all session. They get spooked, they get out. They don't operate the way the home investors do, any more than the New York Yankees operate like your Saturday afternoon softball team. Never, ever forget that. Buy and sell points are often driven by technical indicators, not something as clear as did we get a fiscal cliff deal or didn't we. Selling of stocks that starts early and reverses as programmed buy levels are hit and pros see prices they like. The day ends higher. Reached while the House GOP was still considering its next move, Danny Riley, a Chicago-based futures trader and president of MrTopStep.com, noted that from his view, the market has a positive that might surface here. Traders initiated a number of short positions last Friday, and much of the buying on New Year's Eve was short-covering to close those positions, he says.
"We think it’s safe to assume that not all the shorts have covered yet," he says in an email, adding that he believes the first few days of the year will be positive, aided by low trading volume. As traders move to close out shorts, that demand can have the effect of driving up stock prices. Even so, "we do not think we will see a repeat of last year when the markets went straight up in the first quarter."
Riley's of the mind that traders won't sit back too long if the market should tumble initially. He's watching 1433, 1450 and then 1485 as key technical levels in the S&P futures, that is, areas where traders will battle over whether to keep bidding up stocks or decide to start selling. The S&P index closed 2012 at 1426.19.
"Can they sell the news tomorrow?" he says. "Sure, but the buyers will be out in force."
Now, if you're average Joe or Jane investor planning for retirement or the long term, your big picture hasn't been repainted substantially either way. You still want to see whatever assets you own, whether they be stocks, bonds, commodities or anything else, improve your financial situation over time. You may indeed see changes in various tax rates that do affect aspects of how you invest, but it's unlikely that, whatever happens with the fiscal cliff, your financial adviser will tell you to buy with both hands or to sell everything and head for the hills.
Don't panic, in other words, is what you'll hear, because you're thinking years into the future. Panic is for people with giant amounts of capital who have to do something now. The somewhat good news is history has shown us that investors do learn to adapt to the circumstances they're given, even when they're unfavorable. The ultimate take-your-ball-and-go-home alternative of hoarding cash under the mattress hasn't ever proven popular on a massive scale. The near term, though, can be stomach-churning as new rules are ingested and become familiar.
For tomorrow: To get a sense of what might happen in the U.S. markets, you can tune in a few hours early and look at major markets in Asia and Europe. Check around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. ET (Tokyo is closed) to see the direction of the Kospi ( ^KS11) in South Korea and the Hang Seng ( ^HSI) in Hong Kong. Overnight and pre-dawn ET, get the data on the FTSE 100 ( ^FTSE) in London, the DAX ( ^GDAXI) in Frankfurt and the CAC 40 ( ^FCHI) in Paris. Markets are interconnected, and while they don't always move in lockstep, we might be able to get some clues as to how the fiscal cliff progress, or lack thereof, is being treated in the overseas averages.
Beyond the immediate trading impact, the longer lawmakers go without finalizing a fiscal cliff package, the worse it could get for the nation's finances. Should the full cliff be realized, many market and economic observers expect gross domestic product to suffer mightily, and a number have predicted a recession is all but certain. |
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| To: Vendit™ who wrote (42975) | 1/1/2013 9:06:58 PM | | From: Wayners | | | | | This catalyst is almost played out. The next catalyst is the Debt Ceiling and a Debt Downgrade before that. No real spending cuts and no real revenue increase equals more of that same. I think that's a debt downgrade as Fitch promised. I think selling to suckers on the "great news" of a deal makes the most sense. |
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