Obama must lead effort to avoid fiscal cliff: Boehner

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Friday called on President Barack Obama to lead the efforts to avert the $600 billion "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts looming at year's end, but stood by his opposition to any tax rate increases on the wealthy.

Boehner spoke shortly before Obama was to give his first public comments since his win on Tuesday over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

"I am hopeful that productive conversations can begin soon," Boehner said. He then repeated he would staunchly oppose higher tax rates on the wealthy, which Obama made a key theme of his re-election campaign.

"You can put revenue on the table through fixing our broken tax system, getting our economy going again and getting more Americans back to work," Boehner said.

Read on... [Reporting by David Lawder]

Wall Street climbs after data, Obama to speak

By Chuck Mikolajczak

(Reuters) - Stocks rebounded on Friday after two days of steep losses as data showed U.S. consumer sentiment and wholesale business inventories were stronger than expected.

The S&P 500 fell 3.6 percent in the previous two sessions, its worst two-day performance in slightly over a year, following the U.S. election as investors shifted their focus back to the looming "fiscal cliff" and the euro zone's debt crisis.

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Pres. Obama: "Right now, if Congress fails to come to an agreement...by the end of the year, everybody's taxes will automatically go up on January 1"

Reuters: U.S. stocks cut gains after President Obama's speech on fiscal cliff

Republican Jim DeMint criticizes Speaker Boehner's fiscal cliff plan:

"Speaker Boehner's $800 billion tax hike will destroy American jobs and allow politicians in Washington to spend even more, while not reducing our $16 trillion debt by a single penny...This isn't rocket science. Everyone knows that when you take money out of the economy, it destroys jobs, and everyone knows that when you give politicians more money, they spend it. This is why Republicans must oppose tax increases and insist on real spending reductions that shrink the size of government and allow Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money."

“Big government is the cause of our debt crisis, not the solution. Washington has a spending addiction that is shackling our children and grandchildren with unsustainable debt. Conservatives fought for a balanced budget amendment last year precisely because we knew the political establishment in Washington would never stop their tax and spend addiction without it. However, if neither party leadership is going to put forward a serious plan to balance the budget and pay down the debt, we should end this charade. We can stop the fiscal cliff with the bill that House Republicans already passed that simply extends the current tax rates and replaces the defense cuts with reductions in wasteful spending.”

After months of delay, Pentagon told to plan for fiscal cliff

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The White House budget office has directed the U.S. Defense Department to begin planning for automatic budget cuts due to go into effect in January that would slash some $500 billion in planned spending over the next decade, the Pentagon spokesman said on Wednesday.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said that the department, which for months had been instructed not to prepare for the automatic cuts, had now been told by the White House Office of Management and Budget to begin "internal planning" for the reductions.

"Naturally we hope very much that sequestration will be avoided and that we don't enter that phase in early January 2013. We don't want to go off the fiscal cliff, but in consultation with OMB we think that it is prudent at this stage to begin at least some limited internal planning," he said.

White House orders agencies to prepare for possible spending cuts

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The White House budget office has asked all federal agencies for information to finalize contingency plans for automatic spending cuts due to go into effect in January should the Obama administration fail to reach agreement to avert the reductions, the White House said on Wednesday.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration remained confident of reaching a deal to avoid so-called "sequestration" but that the Office of Management and Budget "must take certain steps to ensure that the administration is ready to issue such an order should Congress fail to act."

Carney told reporters that OMB earlier this week "issued a request to federal agencies for additional information to finalize calculations on the spending reductions that would be required."

President Obama, House Speaker Boehner discuss "fiscal cliff"-aide

WASHINGTON Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, locked in a stalemate over the "fiscal cliff," spoke by telephone this afternoon, a Boehner spokesman said.

The spokesman offered no additional information, but the conversation marked the first time in a week that the two key figures talked to each other in the drive for a bipartisan deal

House committee purge may continue as Boehner tightens grip by David Lawder

(Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's purge of some dissident Republican congressmen from key committees may continue as he seeks to tighten control over his unruly caucus ahead of difficult votes on "fiscal cliff" issues.

House Republican lawmakers said on Wednesday that in addition to the four conservatives who were stripped of their committee assignments earlier this week, other unnamed lawmakers were warned that their votes need to be more in line with party leadership and committee chairmen.

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Jobless claims fall back to pre-storm range by Lucia Mutikani

(Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell for a third straight week last week, dropping back to their pre-superstorm Sandy range.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 370,000 in the week ended December 1, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

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Senate Minority Leader McConnell blocks debt limit vote

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday prevented a simple majority vote on a proposal to give President Barack Obama unilateral power to raise the debt limit, as Democrats and Republicans jockeyed to end a stalemate on how to resolve spending and tax issues by year's end.

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