The clock is winding down on coming up with a deal to avoid going over the fiscal cliff but Sen. Harry Reid’s patience has already run out.
Reid lashed out at John Boehner Thursday, accusing him of sacrificing a debt deal in order to secure his own speakership role in the Congress.
“The American people I don’t think understand the House of Representatives is operating without the House of Representatives,” Reid said. “It’s being operated by a dictatorship of the speaker, not allowing the vast majority of the House of Representatives to get what they want.”
Reid added that, if the White House-approved plan to raise taxes on Americans earning more than $250,000 year were put to a vote, it would pass “overwhelmingly.”
The Senate majority leader said that Boehner, whose Plan-B proposal didn’t even make it to a floor vote last week, was waiting to secure his speakership before bringing up vote on the debt deal Jan. 3.
“Time-wise, I don’t know how it can happen here,” Reid said of Senate action on the debt deal. With the Senate in session, Reid had little sympathy for members of the House who had not yet returned to Washington, D.C., from their holiday break. Instead of working overtime to come up with a debt deal, Reid argued that House members were, “watching movies and watching their kids play soccer and basketball and all kinds of things.”
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