Free Republic

House speaker John Boehner is set to sign an offer from Obama to accelerate negotiations. Republicans in the House of Representatives have capitulated in the showdown over the payroll tax, handing Barack Obama an important victory going into election year. Under pressure from other senior Republicans for blocking a bill that would extend tax cuts to millions of Americans, the House speaker, John Boehner, is backing away from his insistence that any deal must cover a full year. A deal agreed by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on Saturday covers two months, to allow further negotiations in January. It...

(snip) MCCAIN: ... just wants to spend money. Hello? He just wants to spend more money. You and I are -- remember when Ronald Reagan said the worst deal he ever made was when he sat down with the Democrats and said they would cut spending $3 and raise taxes for every $1. Guess what? They raised taxes and they didn’t cut spending. That’s why the Tea Partiers and others would – I’m not a Tea Partier -- but the fact is, we need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We couldn’t get it through the Senate as the...

<p>PHOENIX (AP) - U.S. Sen. John McCain says it's up to President Barack Obama to decide whether he wants to work with Republicans to solve America's financial woes and other problems.</p> <p>He maintains that he has been willing to work with Obama all along, but that the president hasn't shown the same cooperation.</p>

Columbus, Ohio (CNN) - Retiring Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said Monday that the upcoming lame duck session of Congress should work together on a handful of key issues to demonstrate a commitment to problem-solving rather than partisan bickering. (snip) He suggested that in the lame duck session, the 18-member bipartisan debt commission should endorse recommendations to help repair the country's deep budget deficit. He called on lawmakers to listen to the commission and have "the courage to move forward and do the tough things that need to be done for our country." (snip) "Once we are elected we ought to...