Obama to end Christmas vacation early

WASHINGTON POST

After just four days of vacation, President Obama is planning to leave Hawaii early to return to Washington in a last-ditch effort to reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. A White House official said Obama would fly home as soon as Wednesday – giving him only five days before an automatic series of deep spending cuts and sharp tax increases on nearly all Americans begins to take effect. After a month and a half of largely fruitless negotiations with congressional Republicans, Obama left for Hawaii late Friday to begin his customary winter vacation in his native state, expressing hope that cooler heads would prevail over the holiday. But he pledged to return this week, holding out hope that Republicans will either agree to a stopgap measure intended to reduce the impact of the fiscal cliff or, possibly, to an even broader deal to begin to tame the nation’s debt. Lawmakers are set to return to business on Thursday, but no specific talks are scheduled yet.Little progress has been accomplished over the holiday weekend, with virtually no talks between Republicans and the White House. Since arriving early Saturday morning, Obama has had a quiet few days in Hawaii, playing golf, going to the gym and hiking with his family. On Christmas, he often goes to church and visits troops on a nearby base, but he did not go to church Tuesday. As of 4 p.m., Hawaii time, he was on his way to visit troops at the nearby Marine base. Obama’s stopgap proposal is to freeze tax rates for people earning under $250,000 and extend unemployment benefits, which are set to expire at the end of the month. He’d also want to patch the alternative minimum tax, which will dramatically raise taxes on millions of people next year if left untouched, and potentially address other remaining issues, including automatic decreases in Medicare payments and the spending cuts, known as “sequestration.” But many lawmakers were pessimistic last week that a deal may be within reach after House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) had to pull a vote on his “Plan B” measure to raise taxes on millionaires after too many Republicans refused to back it.