On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham conceded a political victory to President Barack Obama on the pending fiscal cliff negotiations.
“What have we accomplished? Political victory for the president,” Graham said. “Hats off to the president — he stood his ground. He’s going to get tax rate increases, maybe not at [$250,000], but on upper-income Americans. And the sad news for the country is we’ve accomplished very little in not becoming Greece or getting out of debt. This deal won’t affect the debt situation. And it will be a political victory for the president, and I hope we have courage of our convictions, when it comes to raise the debt ceiling to fight what we believe as Republicans. Hats off to the president, he won.”
Graham said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would have to get more Republican senators to support the deal.
“If McConnell can’t get 60 percent of us to vote for the deal, it will be hard for Boehner to get through the House,” Graham added. “And want to vote for it, though I don’t like it because the country has a lot to the stake here.”
Graham’s colleague, California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also a guest on “Fox News Sunday,” said she is concerned about the economic impacts of the possible agreement.
“I think he’s partially right,” Feinstein said. “You know, yesterday, 2.1 million Americans lost extended unemployment insurance. And, from this point on, it is lose-lose. My big worry is a contraction of the economy — the loss of jobs, which could be well over 2 million in addition to the people already on unemployment. I think contraction in the economy really would be just terrible for this nation. I think we need a deal. We should do a deal.”
“If Lindsey and I could sit down, I think we could put the deal together,” she continued. “I think the leadership is now working. It will probably be an immediate deal. In other words, it is not going to solve all of the problems or ever. but, it will solve certain problems, in other words, not only the unemployment insurance, but doctors lose 30 percent on Medicare patients, if that isn’t remedied, called the doc fix, that will probably be done. The tax extenders will probably be done and a number of other things that are instant.”