House Speaker John Boehner

House Speaker John Boehner, cheap moncler jackets Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell met privately for about an hour in the Capitol Wednesday night.
There was no immediate sign that a deal was near, but the meeting could be an indication they finally are working directly with each other toward resolving the dispute that threatens to shutter the government at the end of the week and raise the payroll tax rate on working Americans at the end of the month.
The development came amid news that Senate Democrats will offer a new proposal for extending the payroll tax cut that drops a provision to tax income over $1 million, a Democratic source told CNN.
The so-called "millionaires tax" was opposed by Republicans who had blocked previous proposals by Senate Democrats to prevent the payroll tax on workers from returning to a higher rate at the end of the year.
No further details were immediately available on the new proposal, first reported by CNN, which emerged from a White House meeting between Senate Democratic leaders and President Barack Obama on Wednesday afternoon, the source said.
2011 a big year for flirting with government shutdowns
Abandoning the surtax on millionaires would be a major concession by Senate Democrats and Obama.
Obama for months has argued that the wealthy should pay what he terms their fair share of taxes.
After Wednesday night's meeting, which took place in McConnell's office, Reid and Boehner returned to their offices where they huddled with members of their leadership teams.
When McConnell left the Capitol a few minutes later he was asked for a progress report. His response was cryptic.
"We'll finish up," he said. "It's almost Christmas."
Earlier, political skullduggery spilled onto the Senate floor with Democratic and Republican leaders openly squabbling over the order of votes on the GOP payroll tax-cut plan and the spending measure needed to keep the government funded.
The inability of Senate party leaders to agree on how to proceed, let alone actually schedule votes, stymied progress on measures that both parties Moncler Men Vest,Moncler Men,moncler vest for men on sale. have said they support in concept -- holding down taxes for working Americans and determining government spending for the rest of the fiscal year.
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In a rare display of overt hostility, Reid, D-Nevada, accused Republican counterpart McConnell of "living in a world of non-reality" and said the GOP payroll tax cut plan passed Tuesday by the House was "dead on arrival" in the Senate.
McConnell, R-Kentucky, shot back that Democrats wasted weeks of time with political "show votes" intended to bolster President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.
The Senate, he said, should now vote first on a broad spending agreement reached by congressional negotiators to ensure that government funding continues after a previous short-term extension expires at midnight Friday.
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"Quit wasting our time here in the Senate scoring points with the shutdown two days away," McConnell said.
Reid and other Senate Democrats responded that McConnell and Republicans want to avoid certain defeat on their payroll tax plan, which includes controversial provisions to speed approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada and weaken environmental regulations.
House GOP leaders are considering a move that would try to force a vote on the huge government spending bill, according to two Republican members.
In a closed-door House Republican conference meeting Wednesday, Boehner floated the option of not waiting for Democrats to sign off on a final agreement between the House and Senate on the measure.
Instead, House GOP leaders are discussing combining the spending bills for various government agencies into a single package and having a House vote on Friday.
They would then send it to the Senate and attempt to force Democrats to vote on it -- or be held responsible for a potential government shutdown.
Florida Republican Tom Rooney said leaders have not decided on that course, but are still determining whether they could get 218 Republican votes to pass it -- assuming they are unlikely to get much Democratic support.
Rooney said GOP leaders also discussed passing a short term funding measure to keep the government funded as negotiations continued, but he told reporters, "I don't sense much love for that -- it's another option."
Another Florida Republican, Allen West, said he supported the idea of the House moving ahead with its own spending bill package so federal agencies would be funded. "We can't wait," West told CNN.
After the meeting, Boehner insisted that Republican and Democratic negotiators worked out a deal on the government funding bill, but that Senate Democrats are holding action on that measure hostage to negotiations on the payroll tax cut bill moncler jackets.