Short-Term Deal May Be Reached
ROMANS: Deal or no deal in the Senate. We're hearing about a lot of process and progress. Maybe not the kind of progress we were expecting or hoping for. CNN senior congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, is on the Hill. Dana, what are you hearing about a possible short-term deal, a push off of the sequester, which would create another mini cliff down the road. What's the drama around this?</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We have been hearing over the past hour from Congressional Democratic sources, Christine, telling us that Republicans are pushing to delay the sequester, which is at least in the first month, $110 billion in spending cuts, to delay it for three months. Democrats on Capitol Hill are saying that they don't want to do anything less than a year. They want to delay the sequester for at least a year. And what is fascinating about this is, what has happened over the past 24 hours or so, is when we learn about things when they hit a snag, it's for a purpose. It's to send a signal to somebody or to try to put the brakes on something. It appears to be the case right now. Specifically, congressional Democrats are concerned that the vice president, who is the prime negotiator right now with Mitch McConnell, that he's potentially prepared to cut a deal that delays the sequester, these spending cuts for three months, and that's something that Democrats here on capitol hill don't want. In fact, a congressional Democratic aid said to me, the emerging deal that creates another cliff in three months can't pass, meaning they believe it's a horrible idea because we'll be back where we are in three months trying to figure out how to find spending cuts.</s>BASH: An interesting drama interesting intra-Democratic drama about how this is shaping up. The negotiators are talking furiously. By that, I mean, Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden, keeping people here on Capitol Hill in the loop. And some of what they are hearing, they are happy about, some not so happy. That's where we are right now.</s>ROMANS: The Republican drama has been about raising taxes on anyone, even the very richest. As the day goes on, it looks as though they are coming to sort -- feels, I should say, because this is all emerging -- there's some resolution on the tax front. Now you're seeing that inter-party controversy happening on the Democratic side?</s>BASH: That's right. This is one issue. But another issue we talked about earlier in the hour are just generally the progressives or liberals in the Democratic caucus making clear they don't like what they are hearing, specifically, the idea that households would keep their tax cuts in place up to $450,000. I should add, since we last talked, Jessica Yellin learned that the threshold they are talking now is households of $450,000 and individuals of $400,000. That's new since we talked. But in general, yes, we hear progressives, Tom Harkin, your home state Senator from Iowa, a leading liberal in the Senate, veteran Senator, he has made clear he does not want that. He told me he may try to block a deal to stop it.</s>ROMANS: Unemployment benefits, the payroll tax holiday, the estate tax. The ANT, the doc fix. It's more than just rates that we're talking about here, and it's more than just the sequester. There's all these patches. Any clarity on those?</s>BASH: You're absolutely right. There's so much. On the payroll tax, I have not heard anybody talk about continuing that. It doesn't mean it might not pop up at the last-minute, but what it means is that everybody will see a little bit of a bite taken out of the paycheck no matter what because the payroll tax holiday goes away. On the AMT, many of us working the story at CNN were told they're talking about patching that permanently. Then I got an e-mail from a Democratic source saying it's not true. The estate tax, keeping the low rate, or at least lower than it was, on the table, seems to still be on the table. All of these things are still worked out. You're absolutely right. There's so much here and that affects people where it matters most, in their wallets and paychecks.</s>ROMANS: Parents, teachers, college students, every working Americans, doctors, I could go on and on forever. Dana Bash watching the emerging -- emerging --