McConnell Pushed Into Fiscal Fight as Congress Faces Deadline

(bloomberg) Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who has stayed largely outside the U.S. budget fight this year, will be thrust into prominence just five days before the deadline for tax increases and spending cuts.
After the House of Representatives failed to act and the Treasury Department said yesterday it will start taking special measures now to avoid breaking the debt ceiling, McConnell’s next move may influence whether more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts begin in January. President Barack Obama is pressing for lawmakers to craft an interim deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff as senators return to Washington today.
Should Democrats who control the Senate heed Obama’s call, McConnell will choose from three options: using his legislative experience to help forge a bipartisan deal, wielding his power to block a proposal by Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid from reaching a vote, or letting Democrats advance their own plan without having to endorse it.
“His instincts and his background have always been to engage more in the legislative bargaining and deal-making,” said Stephen Voss, associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. Still, “there are lots of pressures that encourage him to represent the more conservative wing of the Republican Party in these negotiations, and we’ve seen that,” Voss said.

‘Bad Cop’ Incentive

As McConnell prepares to seek a sixth term in 2014, the Kentucky Republican risks drawing a Republican primary challenger if he supports raising taxes on anyone, giving him an incentive to be the “bad cop” who scoffs at Obama’s budget proposals, Voss said.
Whatever McConnell does, the House -- which balked at the tax-rate increases for top earners that Obama and Democrats say are needed in any deal -- would still need to approve any measure the Senate passes.
McConnell, 70, has called on the Senate to take up and consider changes to House-passed legislation that would extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels. He’s argued that the Senate could try to alter that legislation to allow tax cuts to expire for top earners, as Democrats advocate.

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