Boehner Has to Forget Plan ‘B’

House Speaker John Boehner scrapped a plan to allow higher tax rates on annual income above $1 million, yielding to anti-tax resistance within his own party and throwing already-stalled budget talks deeper into turmoil.

He will hold a news conference today at 10 a.m. Washington time, his office said in a statement.

Boehner said last night that President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should come up with legislation to avoid more than $600 billion in tax-and-spending changes that would probably cause a recession in the first half of 2013 if left in place. Until Dec. 17, Obama and Boehner had been edging closer to a deal that would have included $1 trillion each in tax increases and spending cuts.

Now that Boehner has pulled his plan, House members and senators won’t vote on the end-of-year budget issues until after Christmas, giving them less than a week to reach agreement to avert tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January. The partisan divide hardened yesterday, making the path to a deal more uncertain.

“The odds go up that we go over the fiscal cliff,” said Representative Rob Bishop of Utah, a Republican.

Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures dropped 1.3 percent at 8:24 a.m. New York time, after falling as much as 3.4 percent in Asian trading. U.S. Treasuries rose, sending the 10-year yield down three basis points to 1.76 percent.

Bloomberg

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Dean Popplewell

Dean Popplewell

Vice-President of Market Analysis at MarketPulse
Dean Popplewell has nearly two decades of experience trading currencies and fixed income instruments. He has a deep understanding of market fundamentals and the impact of global events on capital markets. He is respected among professional traders for his skilled analysis and career history as global head of trading for firms such as Scotia Capital and BMO Nesbitt Burns. Since joining OANDA in 2006, Dean has played an instrumental role in driving awareness of the forex market as an emerging asset class for retail investors, as well as providing expert counsel to a number of internal teams on how to best serve clients and industry stakeholders.
Dean Popplewell