STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 7 December 2012

[Demeter]

45. Fiscal cliff: hopes rise for deal as Jim DeMint quits Senate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/fiscal-cliff-blog/2012/dec/06/fiscal-cliff-obama-polls-live



President Obama takes to the road again today to sell his plans to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, making an appearance with a family in northern Virginia who would be affected by the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts at the end of this year.

The House of Representatives, meanwhile, is gone off on a break, although Speaker John Boehner has vowed to stay in Washington in case a deal breaks out. Last night President Obama called Boehner to discuss negotiations on the fiscal cliff although few details have been released about the content of their discussion.

But new polling shows strong support for the White House and Democratic party stances on raising taxes on the most wealthy while extending tax cuts for the middle class – and show little support for any attempts to cut federal social services such as Medicare. Some 66% of those polled by Quinnipiac believe the best way to reduce the deficit is a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, which is the package being advocated by Democrats.

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Senator Jim DeMint, South Carolina's rock-ribbed conservative and hero to the Tea Party movement, has announced that he is resigning from Congress, setting off a political explosion in Washington that will be felt in the fiscal cliff negotiations and throughout the Republican party. The decision to step down from the Senate next month to become head of the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation shocked Washington's commentators – and makes clear that the era of Tea Party influence over the GOP has waned. DeMint made a name for himself as an unyielding voice in opposition to taxes and spending within the Republican party, regularly excoriating his own side for any signs of compromise. Just this week he made a savage attack on the Republican House offer to avert the fiscal cliff. In recent years DeMint has become a kingmaker within Republican conservative circles. But his decision to leave Congress is a further sign that the extreme conservative wing of the Republican party is weakened in the wake of the 2012 elections...

THE AVERAGE IQ IN THE SENATE PROBABLY JUST DOUBLED....