President Barack Obama used his bully pulpit Tuesday to warn of calamitous consequences for the U.S. economy should the automatic spending cuts known as the “sequester” go into effect next Friday.

The president warned that the automatic cuts, totaling about $85 billion over the course of this year, would prompt job losses, weakened national security and canceled government services – among other consequences.

“So these cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls,” Obama said in a statement at the White House. “This is not an abstraction; people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again.”

The speech featured no new, concrete proposal from the president detailing how he would prefer for Congress to replace the sequester.

Democrats in Congress released a plan last week that called for $55 billion in new revenues from closing tax loopholes and deductions, and additional cuts by $27.5 billion to each the defense and discretionary spending budgets over the course of the next decade.

Obama’s speech was otherwise spent reiterating points he’s made for the better part of the last two months. He said that any sequester replacement should be “balanced” – shorthand for a combination of new tax revenue and spending cuts – and Obama urged lawmakers to approve a shorter-term replacement for the automatic cuts if they couldn’t reach consensus on a broader package by the end-of-February deadline. 

Rather, the president, who was flanked by first-responders whose jobs Obama said would be threatened by the sequester, was making use of political optics and the presidential bully pulpit to pressure Congress to act. 

Still, the urgency appeared to have little effect on Republicans, who dismissed the president’s remarks as unserious about reaching a solution. 

"Once again, the president offered no credible plan that can pass Congress – only more calls for higher taxes," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.

“Today's event at the White House proves once again that more than three months after the November election, President Obama still prefers campaign events to common sense, bipartisan action,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. 

Indeed, many Republicans have treated the sequester as a fait accompli; Congress is out of town this week, and lawmakers would only have a handful of days next week to act upon the sequester. Some Republicans have also argued that even if the sequester is replaced, its $85 billion in cuts should set a baseline for offsetting cuts in other areas of the budget. 

“I have to say, though, that so far, at least, the ideas that the Republicans have proposed asks nothing of the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations,” Obama said of the GOP proposal. “So the burden is all on first-responders or seniors or middle-class families. They doubled down, in fact, on the harsh, harmful cuts that I've outlined.”

The president added, as if to drive home the point: “Well, that's not balanced. That would be like Democrats saying we have to close our deficits without any spending cuts whatsoever. It's all taxes. That's not the position Democrats have taken, that's certainly not the position I've taken.”

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 19, 2013 11:04 AM EST

Republicans are dug in as ever against raising new taxes, and their budgetary standard-bearer, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, said Sunday that the Republican House of Representatives has already moved past the question of new revenues. 

Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman and former GOP vice presidential nominee, laid out the contours of what will almost certainly be a bruising springtime debate on taxes and spending — an outgrowth of the unresolved consequences of the "fiscal cliff."

And as the GOP-held House and the Democratic-controlled Senate prepare dueling budget proposals, Ryan argued that the president was unserious about tackling the mounting national debt. 

"The president got his additional revenues. So that's behind us," Ryan said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in his first live interview since the presidential election, when Ryan and presidential candidate Mitt Romney lost decisively to President Barack Obama. 

During the campaign, Romney and Ryan talked forcefully about reforming taxes and raising revenues by closing loopholes and deductions that favor the wealthy. While Democrats won higher taxes on household income over $450,000 as part of the New Year's deal to stave off the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts in the fiscal cliff, Democrats now say they'll produce a budget asking for even more revenue, possibly through similar tax reforms.

"Are we for raising revenues? No we're not," Ryan said. "If you keep raising revenues, you're not going to get decent tax reform."

The Wisconsin congressman's comments portend a debate over taxes and spending in Washington featuring parties as far apart as ever. Republicans this week passed legislation to suspend the debt limit — and, with it, the specter of default — until May. But Congress must still reckon with the need to continue funding the government, and address the automatic and drastic spending cuts (known as the "sequester") that were delayed only for two months as part of the fiscal cliff.

"I think the sequester's going to happen," Ryan said, blaming Democrats for offering no palatable substitute for those cuts. 

And Ryan said that Republicans were "not interested" in a government shutdown, the consequence for which some GOP lawmakers have openly called should Obama and lawmakers fail to reach an agreement to fund the government.

But those looming questions — which are tied directly into the budgets that the House and Senate will debate this spring — reflect how Washington remained as vexed as ever by fiscal issues. 

And the rhetoric is hot as ever, too.

"I don't think that the president actually thinks we have a fiscal crisis," Ryan said. 

With tax and spending matters set to dominate much of lawmakers' energy for the first half of this year, it could make other elements of Obama's agenda — like immigration reform and curbing gun violence — more politically difficult. 

Ryan, who has praised a bipartisan set of immigration reforms offered by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R, said he was cautiously optimistic about the prospects for immigration reform this year. But Ryan said that Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike would closely watch Obama's speech on Tuesday in Nevada on that topic.

And of the president's gun control measures, Ryan suggested openness to embracing some measures — like requiring universal background checks on gun sales — while expressing skittishness toward other elements of the plan, like the ban on assault weapons.

As Ryan himself navigates these very thorny issues for the next four years, his every action will be refracted through the prism of 2016 presidential politics. After having emerged as something of a GOP rock star as Romney's running mate last fall, many Republicans hope that the Wisconsin congressman might seek the presidency himself in four years, joining a tentative field of Republican contenders for the nomination that is full of proverbial heavyweights.

Ryan offered a familiar answer about his own potential ambitions, saying he doesn't think about running, and that he was currently focused on his job serving his constituents. 

"I think it's just premature. I've got an important job to do," he said. "I'll decide later about that."

Updated 2:26 p.m. - Republicans will act to push the deadline at which the U.S. government would default on the national debt to mid-April, demanding that Democrats pass a budget in exchange for a long-term extension in borrowing authority.

House Republicans said they will take up legislation next week to temporarily extend the debt limit for three months, past the mid-February deadline when the government, according to the Treasury, would reach its legal limit on borrowing to finance the government's obligations.

"Next week, we will authorize a three month temporary debt limit increase to give the Senate and House time to pass a budget," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said. "Furthermore, if the Senate or House fails to pass a budget in that time, members of Congress will not be paid by the American people for failing to do their job. No budget, no pay."

Recommended: Different attitude greeting Obama's upcoming inaugural

"We are encouraged that there are signs that congressional Republicans may back off their insistence on holding our economy hostage to extract drastic cuts in Medicare, education and programs middle class families depend on," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in response. "Congress must pay its bills and pass a clean debt limit increase without further delay."

Such a move would push the deadline for default to mid-April, around the time at which the House and Senate are typically expected to produce and pass budgets. To secure a longer-term extension in the debt ceiling, Republicans said Friday, the Senate must finally pass a budget.

"Before there is any long-term debt limit increase, a budget should be passed that cuts spending," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told GOP lawmakers at the conclusion of their retreat, according to remarks released by his office.

Republicans have vocally criticized the Democratic-controlled Senate for failing to produce a budget in recent years, a mark of the upper chamber's unseriousness in the eyes of many conservatives. Democrats have used the two budgets authorized by House Republicans as a political cudgel against the GOP; the Senate's failure to pass a budget has been partially meant to escape similar political culpability.

"We are going to pursue strategies that will obligate the Senate to finally join the House in confronting the government’s spending problem," Boehner said. "The principle is simple: no budget, no pay."

Recommended: NBC/WSJ poll - Public lowers expectations heading into Obama's 2nd term

Republicans' new strategy cuts against a strain of thought within the GOP that suggests that default would not be as catastrophic for the economy as many experts have warned. These Republicans have argued for using the debt ceiling deadline -- and the specter of default -- as leverage to extract spending cuts or entitlement reforms from President Barack Obama.

"It is reassuring to see Republicans beginning to back off their threat to hold our economy hostage," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in response. "If the House can pass a clean debt ceiling increase to avoid default and allow the United States to meet its existing obligations, we will be happy to consider it."

But Republicans are facing increasing political pressure to act, and prevent default. The party's favorable/unfavorable rating was near its worst ever in Thursday's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll following a drawn-out battle over the fiscal cliff, a political fiasco many Republicans aren't eager to repeat. And Obama gave a press conference earlier this week explicitly refuse bargaining over the debt limit.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, right, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., left, walk to a second Republican conference meeting to discuss the fiscal cliff bill passed by the Senate Monday night and now awaits a vote in the GOP-controlled House, at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013.

In recent days, high-profile Republicans had steadily backed away from the prospect of defaulting on the national debt, sending signals that they'll extend the nation's borrowing authority for at least a little while longer.

"We will raise the debt ceiling. We're not going to default on our debt," Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Republicans' No. 2 in the upper chamber, told the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle. "I will tell you unequivocally, we're not going to default."

And Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the House Budget Committee chairman and former vice presidential nominee, told reporters at House Republicans' retreat on Thursday that lawmakers were "discussing the virtue of a short term debt limit extension."

They join Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in acknowledging the need for a debt ceiling increase; more and more members of the conservative media have also questioned the political wisdom behind using the debt limit as leverage in the spending debate.

What's more, traditionally GOP-friendly business groups have privately urged lawmakers against wrangling over the debt limit, which has become a factor weighing upon Republicans' strategy.

"There was serious displeasure and concern within the financial services community over the way Republicans handled the debt ceiling issue in 2011," said one business advocate tied into Republican politics. "It was the financial community that helped deliver the resources for a Republican takeover in 2010 and now House Republicans are at risk of jeopardizing their credibility with their free market allies. Cutting spending and helping the economy are not mutually exclusive, but republicans have found a way to make it seem that way in the eyes of voters."

Senate Democratic leaders urged President Barack Obama to act to increase the nation's debt limit, even without congressional approval, in order to avoid a standoff with Republicans over the nation's borrowing authority.

The top four Democrats wrote Obama on Friday to urge him against allowing the debt ceiling becoming a bargaining chip with Republicans, who might threaten to vote against any increase in the debt limit without new spending cuts or entitlement reforms from the administration.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and three other Democrats wrote:

In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension only as part of unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promises and trigger a global economic crisis -- without Congressional approval, if necessary.  

The White House has been loath to assert the type of broad executive privileges that would allow the president to unilaterally increase the amount of money the government is able to borrow in order to cover its obligations. Traditionally, approval of an increase in the debt ceiling has been the province of Congress.

But the 2011 fight over increasing the debt limit almost produced a default. Obama's agreement with Republicans at that time produced the spending cuts that make up the recent "fiscal cliff," which the president and lawmakers didn't fully solve. Obama warned after reaching an agreement with Republicans on taxes earlier this month that he wouldn't bargain over the debt limit, but some GOP lawmakers have begun to speak more openly about using that moment as a point of leverage.

It's not clear what authority Obama would invoke to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Popular theories argue he could invoke the 14th Amendment (which says the "validity of the public debt of the U.S. ... shall not be questioned"), invoke an obscure provision allowing the government to mint a $1 trillion coin to pay for the debt, or even issue I.O.U.s.

"We support your view that an extension of the debt limit is not something for which Democrats should have to negotiate," the Democratic leaders wrote. "At the same time, as a separate matter, we agree about the importance of developing a broad, bipartisan agreement on fiscal policy that strengthens our economy and reduces our long-term budget deficit."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that Republicans will not support more revenue-raising measures in future fights over the nation's deficit, saying that President Barack Obama should lead on addressing spending cuts alone.

"That's over," McConnell said on NBC's Meet the Press when asked about possible new streams of revenue through taxes or tax code reforms.

"We've resolved this issue," McConnell said. "We don't have this problem because we tax too little, we have it because we spend way, way too much. So we've settled the tax issue and now we have to address the single biggest threat to America's future, and that's our excessive spending."

McConnell helped broker an eleventh-hour deal to avert the fiscal cliff last week, a bill that included the expiration of Bush-era tax rates for some of the wealthiest Americans. On Sunday, McConnell defended that deal, opposed by many House Republicans despite an overwhelming bipartisan deal in the Senate.

"Look, this was not a tax increase," he said of the fiscal cliff agreement. "It was not the kind of complete deal we'd like because we want to cut spending but we did stabilize taxes. The tax issue's behind us." 

McConnell did not answer repeated questions about whether or not he would use the threat of a government shutdown to force Democrats' hand on spending cuts.

"I know what your question is," he told host David Gregory. "What I'm telling you is I have not given up on the president stepping up to the plate and tackling the biggest issue confronting the country.

Roger L. Wollenberg / Getty Images

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speak to the media at the White House on Nov. 16, 2012.

Four months ago, the United States Congress had a gloomy approval rating of just 12 percent. And that was before most Americans had ever heard of a "fiscal cliff." 

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll to measure congressional approval (August), showed that a whopping 82 percent of Americans disapproved of the job Congress was doing, an all-time record for the history of the survey.

By some estimates, Congress' approval rating could now -- after an ugly fiscal cliff fight and the brewing storm over aid to Hurricane Sandy victims -- be nearly within the margin of, well, zilch. 

Big policy losers in tax deal: deficit reduction and 'certainty'

So is Congress doomed to forever be the branch of government eating alone in the proverbial cafeteria of public opinion? And can it go any lower?

For the last four years, no more than one-in-three adults has given Congress a thumbs up, according to the poll. And it's been longer than a decade since more than half of Americans approved of their representative government on Capitol Hill.

Experts say that because the ratings have been so poor for so long, members are no longer fazed by the public's overall disapproval. They note that the lambasting of Congress as a whole has minimal effects on individual races, especially when candidates run against the status quo of the very body they're trying to join.

Some 90 percent of lawmakers who ran for re-election in 2012 will be coming right back to Capitol Hill for the 113th Congress. 

"Nobody ever votes on Congress as a whole, they vote on individual members," says Jack Pitney, professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. "The message that most lawmakers give their constituents is 'I'm great, it's these other bozos who are the problem.'"

For the most part, that pitch works.

'Everybody has something to hate'
In the August NBC/WSJ poll, even though only about one-in-ten Americans approved of Congress, four times as many said that their own representatives deserved re-election.

Apart from keeping the same lawmakers they seem bent on throwing out, the public has also sent mixed signals on whether or not it wants a government divided between two parties.

For more than 20 of the last 30 years, the White House has been controlled by a different party than one or both houses of Congress.

Boehner likely to be reelected speaker, but there could be drama

With Congress frequently butting heads with the president -- particularly on budgetary matters that could have real and unpleasant consequences for American taxpayers -- it's not easy for lawmakers to compete for a "Miss Congeniality" trophy.

"These fights, combined with difficult economic times, leave the public to understandably think very poorly of the Congress," says Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and the co-author of a recent book on political dysfunction.

"I don't think it's destined to always be that way, but when you have a war going on between the two major parties, not just during campaign season but throughout the governing season, then it's not surprising for Congress to get these kind of ratings," Mann said. 

Making matters worse for Congress: the issues at stake often involve spending cuts and federal program changes likely to affect voters directly -- many of them negatively.

"We have an enormous deficit and the only steps that we can take to reduce the deficit are painful and unpopular," says Pitney. "Plus, you have split party control, so everybody has something to hate."

Public wants unity
In a model divided government, the Congress would serve -- at least in principle -- to cancel the most partisan priorities from the executive branch in favor of centrist ideals.

But with that rosy idea of balance often replaced by inaction and gridlock, polling suggests that the country may be shifting toward a preference for unity.

A recent Gallup survey showed that the number of Americans who said they want to see divided government is at record lows, with just 23 percent favoring a president and a Congress from different parties.

What the fiscal deal means for you

That's a finding that Brock McCleary, the former deputy executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee and founder of the survey firm Harper Polling, has seen replicated in polls throughout various House districts.

"Our assumption was voters would want one branch of government as a nice check and balance on the other one and think that as long as everyone's tapping the brakes on one another it's probably better for the country," he said. "But we would go and look at polling and find that wasn't actually the case. Very few people were telling pollsters that's what they wanted."

But, McCleary added, that sentiment didn't translate into change in the two most recent elections in 2010 and 2012, which resulted in a Republican House despite a fairly decisive re-election for a Democratic president.

"There's a disconnect there," he said.

With divided government in place for at least the next two years, and with the vast majority up for re-election likely to return each year -- Congress's best hope may ultimately depend on the economy that each party aims to improve. But in the immediate future, those prospects look bleak.

"People generally need to feel as though the country is back on the right track," said McCleary. "Until that turns around it, sliding approval numbers are a fact of life for American politicians."

Updated at 12:32 a.m. ET: An agreement to stave off the harshest and most immediate consequences of the fiscal cliff won approval in the House late Tuesday. President Barack Obama signed the law on Wednesday night, the battle over which foreshadowed more fights with Congress over spending.

Following a day of hectic wrangling on Capitol Hill — where the prospects for passing the bipartisan, Senate legislation regarding the fiscal cliff hung in the balance for much of New Year's Day — the House voted 257 to 167 to pass the belated compromise measure over the objections of many conservative Republicans.

The legislation takes steps toward resolving the combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that took effect at midnight on Jan. 1. It preserves tax rates as they were at the end of 2012, except for those individuals earning more than $400,000 and households earning over $450,000. It also allows taxes on capital gains and dividends to go up, and extends benefits of the unemployed. Additionally, the Senate bill delays the onset of the "sequester" — the swift, automatic spending cuts — for two months. 

Fiscal cliff compromise leaves few satisfied

"Thanks to the votes of Democrats and Republicans in Congress I will sign a law that raises the taxes on the wealthiest of Americans," Obama said in remarks at the White House Tuesday, "while preventing a middle-class tax hike."

The House vote laid bare some of the internal ideological divisions to plague the GOP over the past two years. More Republican congressmen (151) voted against the Senate bill than for it (85), meaning that Democrats' support was needed to advance the final deal. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, took the rare step of casting a vote, and did so in favor of the legislation. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the former Republican vice presidential nominee, also supported the package. But Boehner's top two lieutenants, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., each opposed the deal.

"Now the focus turns to spending," Boehner said in a statement following the House vote. "The American people re-elected a Republican majority in the House, and we will use it in 2013 to hold the president accountable for the ‘balanced’ approach he promised, meaning significant spending cuts and reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving our country deeper and deeper into debt."

While the last-minute action on Capitol Hill essentially mitigates much of the risk posed to the U.S. economic recovery by the fiscal cliff, it hardly brings resolution to the bitter and often intractable fight in Washington over taxes and spending. The first half of 2013 will feature battles in Congress over raising the debt limit, continuing basic government funding and the expiration of this two-month delay in the sequester. 

Bipartisan outrage after House skips vote on $60 billion Sandy aid bill

Obama nodded to those looming fights in his remarks Tuesday evening, renewing his call for "balance" in any solution in the coming year to address deficits and debts. But the president also sternly warned Congress against using the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip, as Republicans had in summer of 2011.

"While I'll negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether to pay the bills they have racked up," Obama said.

PhotoBlog: Deal done, Obama heads back to Hawaii with a weary wink

The fiscal cliff itself was the product of discord in Congress resolving those very issues. And the difficulty in attaining even this less ambitious piece of legislation — versus the kind of "grand bargain" Obama had first sought in talks with Republicans — offered a cautionary tale for the 113th Congress, in which the House and the Senate remain controlled by the same parties as during the past two years. 

Squabbling
And even for much of Tuesday, House approval of the fiscal legislation — which was negotiated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Vice President Joe Biden — was far from certain. GOP leaders were forced to cajole conservatives who complained the fallback deal contained insufficient spending cuts. Only after it became clear that Republicans wouldn't have the votes to amend the Senate proposal — which the upper chamber said it wouldn't even consider — did House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, bring the bill to the floor. 

The squabbling was familiar to any observers of Congress during the past two years. This divide almost resulted in a government shutdown and a default on the national debt in 2011. It again threatened Tuesday to allow the painful, across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts to play out just as the U.S. economic recovery showed signs of accelerating.

PhotoBlog: See images of Congress working overtime to avoid fiscal cliff

And this deal just approved by Congress in the waning hours of 2013's first day all but ensures that much of the coming year will be dominated by similar battles in Washington. Republicans are hopeful they might be able to extract more spending cuts and entitlement reforms with the government up against other deadlines, like the one needed this spring to authorize more government borrowing. 

That could complicate Obama's already-ambitious second term agenda. The president said just this past Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he will seek comprehensive immigration reform legislation and new laws to address gun violence.

Updated at 2:15 a.m. ET -- An agreement in principle to avert broad tax increases and spending cuts passed in the Senate early Tuesday morning, with an overwhelming vote of 89-8.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote before Wednesday.

The interim New Year's Eve tax deal negotiated by Biden and Senate Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky would raise income taxes on single earners with annual incomes above $400,000 and married couples with incomes above $450,000.

It also blocks spending cuts for two months, extends unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, prevents a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients and prevents a spike in milk prices.

As of mid-afternoon Monday, the sticking point involved the "sequester," the cuts to spending – about $100 billion to start in 2013 -- that were mandated by the Budget Control Act which President Barack Obama signed into law last year. Republicans have signaled they might let the sequester take effect unless it was offset by other spending cuts; the GOP has also said it might accept a delay, but only for a few months.

The Obama administration, however, was pushing for a longer delay in implementing the sequester. Otherwise, the president said, replacing those automatic cuts must be "balanced" — shorthand for a combination of new taxes and other spending cuts.

Obama tried to push talks over the finish line earlier in the afternoon with a statement from the White House.

"Today, it appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight," the president said at the White House on Monday. "But it's not done."

In the absence of a broader agreement to resolve the sequester, McConnell appeared in the Senate floor to request a vote only on the tax element of the fiscal cliff.

"Let's pass the tax relief portion now," he said. "Let's take what's been agreed to and keep moving."

But it's not clear that Democrats, who were led in negotiations by Vice President Joe Biden, would agree to de-link the tax debate from other fights over the sequester and extending expiring unemployment benefits past Dec. 31.

House Republicans were careful to note that it was still possible for them to add votes late on New Year's Eve. But they also argued that there was no Senate-passed legislation on which they could schedule a vote, making the prospect of avoiding the cliff all the less likely.

Democratic and Republican sources in the House told NBC News that a final vote on any deal would now most likely wait until afternoon on New Year's Day, or even on Jan. 2.

Though Congress could still conceivably act after New Year's to preserve existing tax rates — thereby limiting any lasting effect on consumers — their inability to reach an agreement until the very last minute could still threaten to rattle the economy and markets.

The House did act late Sunday, though, to clear the way for emergency consideration of Senate legislation if leaders are able to reach an agreement. The House Rules Committee convened with the purpose of dispensing with a rule instilled by Republicans in the early days of 2011 to require that legislation be posted online for a full 72 hours before a vote in the House. GOP leaders had sought that rule to showcase their own transparency, and in reaction to actions by the previous Democratic majority to quickly pass legislation during the health care reform battles of 2010.

Republicans' move to sidestep their own rule underscores the urgency of fiscal cliff talks in the final hours of 2012. There were few ironclad assurances, though, that any Senate agreement would necessarily win the support of the House.

The lurching nature of legislating has been characteristic of the Congress during the last two years, and that's a phenomenon that may well continue into the next Congress, when Democrats will continue to retain control of the Senate, and Republicans will hold a slightly slimmer grasp on the House.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, center, arrives at his office in the Capitol as he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, try to negotiate a legislative solution to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012.

After a day of talks that were expected to yield some sort of compromise on the so-called fiscal cliff, Senate leaders called off any further votes until Monday morning, just hours before the deadline that will trigger across-the-board tax increases and dramatic cuts in military and domestic spending. 

The Senate will meet again on New Year's Eve, the last full day before the "cliff" takes effect on Jan. 1. Negotiations were expected to continue in the meanwhile.

A day of wrangling in the Senate came and went without an accord to avoid the fiscal cliff, leaving lawmakers just a matter of hours to sort through thorny issues of taxes and spending that have beguiled Congress for the better part of the past two years. 

Significant distance remains between the two sides and negotiations continue, although the clock continues to tick. Even a simple deal appears far from certain.

"There is still time left to reach an agreement, and we intend to continue negotiations," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced early Sunday evening. "We're going to come in at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning. We'll have further announcements, perhaps, at 11 in the morning. I certainly hope so."

As the Senate struggles to reach an agreement, House members — who were back in Washington on Sunday — were left awaiting any potential legislation from the upper chamber.

Reid and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell had been tasked by President Barack Obama with developing a bare-bones deal to stave off the automatic tax hikes following the expiration of the 2001 Bush tax cuts at the end of the day on Monday. 

But discussions between the leaders and their staff failed to produce an agreement. Democrats said that a main hangup involved what's known as "chained CPI," a re-calculation of how Social Security benefits grow in outlying years. Democrats regard that proposal, which Obama had previously offered to Republicans in the context of a broader bargain, as a "poison pill" if included in these last-ditch efforts. 

The impasse prompted McConnell to reach out to Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator who's previously helped navigate congressional standoffs, in hopes of jump-starting negotiations. Biden was at the White House on Sunday afternoon.

But after each leader huddled with his respective party on Sunday, there were few indications of the type of breakthrough needed to end the stalemate in the Senate. Republicans, though, did appear to relent on any demand to include chained CPI in a final deal (though GOP officials denied they had ever seriously proposed it in the first place).

"We have as a conference have come out and said, if that's a show-stopper for the majority leader, we take that off the table," New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte said following the meeting with fellow Republicans.

The breakdown in negotiations sets the stage for one of the most dramatic days of political deal-making on Monday, the final day of 2012 and just three days before the next Congress — which won't affect control of either chamber but is slightly more Democratic — is sworn into office on Jan. 3.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had recalled House members to Washington for a series of rare weekend evening votes on Sunday. Those lawmakers had conceivably been asked to return  to vote on whatever agreement Senate leaders might be able to forge. But absent any legislation, which would not come before Monday morning, House members' presence was largely superfluous. 

Obama had asked Reid to prepare a vote on fallback legislation to preserve tax rates on income under $250,000 and extend expiring unemployment benefits in case Senate talks fell through. Democrats showed no signs of backing off that intention, though it is unclear whether Boehner would allow that legislation to even come to a vote in the House. 

"Now the pressure's on Congress to produce," Obama said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," which aired Sunday.

The hold-up on Capitol Hill appeared, though, to involve several unresolved issues. First, lawmakers must reach an agreement on the threshold of income beneath which current tax rates would be extended. Second, they must resolve what elements of spending — unemployment benefits, for instance — or commensurate cuts (to offset the cancellation of the automatic spending cuts, known as the sequester) to include in a final package.

"The biggest obstacle we face is that President Obama and Majority Leader Reid continue to insist on new taxes that will be used to fund more new spending, not for meaningful deficit reduction," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Republicans' budget chief, said in a statement.

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed reporting.

Updated 3:10 p.m. — Senate Democrats said talks toward resolving the so-called fiscal cliff before the end-of-year deadline had hit a "major setback" on Sunday afternoon due to a standoff over proposed changes to Social Security. 

Democrats said that Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Ky., are insisting that a deal to resolve the fiscal cliff include what is known as "chained CPI" -- a change in how Social Security benefits are calculated to increase over time. 

Just before a self-imposed deadline at which Senate leaders were set to brief their respective caucuses about a prospective deal, negotiations toward a scaled-back agreement to avoid the onset of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts on Jan. 1 appeared on the verge of breakdown.

Related:Obama: GOP's insistence on halting tax hikes for the wealthy is stopping fiscal cliff deal

McConnell said that he had even reached out to Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator who's helped hammer out previous deals, in hopes of jump-starting the talks. 

"He and the vice president, I wish them well," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. 

"In the meantime, I will try to come up with something," Reid added of Republicans' latest proposal, "but at this stage I don’t have a counter-offer to make."

Obama had offered chained CPI — which would essentially reduce the rate of growth in Social Security benefits over time — as part of a broader "grand bargain" he had previously proposed to Republicans. The GOP rejected that proposal, and moved from there onto House Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B," an ultimately unsuccessful effort. 

In his interview earlier today on NBC's "Meet the Press," the president pointed to his offer on chained CPI as evidence of his willingness to compromise in pursuit of a broad fiscal deal. 

"One of the proposals we made was something called Chain CPI, which sounds real technical but basically makes an adjustment in terms of how inflation is calculated on Social Security," Obama said. "Highly unpopular among Democrats. Not something supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for the long-term I'm willing to make those decisions."

A Senate Democratic aide said that Democrats had thought such a proposal was off the table, though, as part of the talks toward parried-down agreement. 

"It’s basically a poison pill," the aide said of Republicans' demand for chained CPI.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., expressed bewilderment at the breakdown, suggesting that there were more than enough votes for a compromise measure that didn't include chained CPI.

"I don't know what caused this but there's a critical mass of 80 senators who would vote to fix the [alternative minimum tax], the doc fix, extend unemployment insurance, protect everybody 500 thousand and below from a tax increase," he told reporters at the Capitol. "There's 80 senators who will do that without CPI."

McConnell, who spoke briefly on the Senate floor around 2 p.m., struck an ever-so-slightly sunnier note.

"There is no single issue that remains an impossible sticking point," the top Senate Republican said.  "I want everyone to know I'm willing to get this done. But I need a dance partner."

Senators are set to huddle with members of their respective parties this afternoon amid votes to discuss the latest as it relates to the fiscal cliff.

As House members return to town this evening for votes this evening, they'll also caucus with fellow party members to discuss what, if any, way forward there is on the fiscal cliff.

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed reporting.

Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET:  President Barack Obama on Sunday said congressional Republicans and their insistence on preventing tax increases for the very wealthy are standing in the way of a deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.

In an exclusive interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," the president chided House Republicans as the clock continued to run out on a potential agreement.

"They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected," Obama said. "That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme."

House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement shortly after Obama's interview was broadcast accusing the president of backpedaling on "needed cuts and reforms" that he had previously agreed upon.

With a little more than one day remaining before the nation faces automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that could impact an already-wobbling American economy, the president implied that there has been little progress in recent days to justify hopes of a last-minute deal to prevent going over the fiscal cliff at year's end.

"I was modestly optimistic yesterday, but we don't yet see an agreement," he said in the interview, taped on Saturday at the White House. "And now the pressure's on Congress to produce."

Read the full transcript

The president appeared open to eliminating at least some of the scheduled automatic spending cuts if Republicans agree to tax increases for the wealthy. Those cuts are slated to impact defense spending and non-entitlement discretionary spending beginning on Jan. 1. 

"If we have raised some revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to turn off what's called the sequester, these automatic spending cuts, and that also would have a better outcome for our economy long-term," he said. 

The president challenged Republicans to vote on legislation that he said should be introduced by the Democrat-controlled Senate to prevent taxes on the "middle class" from being increased.

But he did not specify what income level he would be willing to accept as a dividing line between those who retain Bush-era tax rates and those whose rates would increase. The president has consistently supported increasing taxes on families making over $250,000 a year, but that figure has been a major bargaining chip in negotiations.

Wherever the line on tax increases ends up, Obama urged a vote in both houses on a final Senate bill if a broader agreement cannot be reached.

Pete Souza / White House Photo

President Barack Obama is interviewed by David Gregory of NBC's "Meet The Press" in the Blue Room of the White House, Dec. 29, 2012.

"Everybody should have a right to vote on that," he said. "If Republicans don't like it, they can vote no. But I actually think that there's a majority support for making sure that middle class families are held harmless."

"So far, at least, Congress has not been able to get this stuff done," he added. "Not because Democrats in Congress don't want to go ahead and cooperate, but because I think it's been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader McConnell to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit, as part of an overall deficit reduction package."

Dismissing the notion that the Democratic Party is as compromise-averse as the GOP, the president said Democrats  -- "warts and all" -- have more consistently agreed to components of bipartisan deals. 

"What I'm arguing for are maintaining tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans. I don't think anybody would consider that some liberal left-wing agenda. That used to be considered a pretty mainstream Republican agenda," he said. "And it's something that we can accomplish today if we simply allow for a vote in the Senate and in the House to get it done. The fact that it's not happening is an indication of how far certain factions inside the Republican Party have gone where they can't even accept what used to be considered centrist, mainstream positions on these issues."

The president offered no new suggestions of compromise measures that may be more palatable to Republicans, although he acknowledged that some Democrats oppose entitlement adjustments and some of the spending cuts that he's put forward during negotiations. 

"The offers that I've made to [Republicans] have been so fair that a lot of Democrats get mad at me," he said, noting that his acceptance of Chained CPI, a measure that would change the way Social Security payments are determined, has caused particular rancor within his own party.

"Highly unpopular among Democrats," he said of the proposed change. "Not something supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for the long-term I'm willing to make those decisions."

If an impasse remains in place, Obama warned, Republicans' rejection of his version of deficit reduction plans would be enough to send financial markets skidding. 

"What's been holding us back is the dysfunction here in Washington," he said. "And if people start seeing that on January 1st this problem still hasn't been solved, that we haven't seen the kind of deficit reduction that we could have had had the Republicans been willing to take the deal that I gave them, if they say that people's taxes have gone up, which means consumer spending is going to be depressed, then obviously that's going to have an adverse reaction in the markets."

In his statement, Boehner, R-Ohio, called Obama's comments "ironic," saying that "a recurring theme of our negotiations was his unwillingness to agree to anything that would require him to stand up to his own party. Needed cuts and reforms that the president agreed to just last year were no longer on the table, as he cited an inability to sell them to Democrats.

"In an effort to get the president to agree to cut spending -- which is the problem -- I put revenues on the table last year, and I put them on the table again last month.  Republicans made every effort to reach the 'balanced' deficit agreement that the president promised the American people, while the president has continued to insist on a package skewed dramatically in favor of higher taxes that would destroy jobs. We've been reasonable and responsible. The president is the one who has never been able to get to 'yes.'"

NBC News' Frank Thorp contributed to this report.