During a New Haven victory lap, Connecticut’s new U.S. senator-elect predicted that the results of Tuesday’s elections could provide a moment of opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to avoid a looming “fiscal cliff.”
The senator-elect, Chris Murphy, stopped by Vito’s Deli on Center Street Thursday to say thanks to politicos who delivered a whopping 30,000-vote New Haven margin of victory in his election Tuesday over Republican Linda McMahon. He told supporters that he “knew I’d won” the election when he stopped by Lincoln-Bassett School mid-morning to see a long line out the door, even though polling places are usually quiet that time of day.
Murphy was asked during the Vito’s stop about his next big task in Washington: Dealing with the so-called “fiscal cliff.” Under the terms of a temporary deal struck last year to prevent the U.S. from going into debt, the Bush tax cuts would expire as planned on Jan. 1, and a host of major across-the-board budget cuts would take effect. The military would be cut 9.4 percent. Social programs (outside of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security) would take 8 percent cuts. A “payroll tax holiday” would expire, meaning even the working poor would take a hit. (Click here for a detailed “cliff” view.)
Republicans and Democrats alike want to avoid that from happening. But they’ve been unable to figure out how.
Murphy said Thursday that he believes the election results nationwide will make compromise possible.
“I think one of the interesting things that happened on Tuesday was some of the most vocal Tea Party obstructionists lost their seats,” such as U.S. Reps. Joe Walsh and Allen West, Murphy observed. “I hope that there’s a message to Republicans that they need to be coming to the table and working with this president to try get some compromise on these questions.”
Murphy declined to cite specifics of any eventual compromise. The important thing is to get one, and make it a long-term solution this time, he said.
He said that as a U.S. Representative he voted against the original deal that set the stage for the “cliff.”
“With this economy in a real fragile recovery right now, we just can’t afford to have that kind of shock to the system in one fell swoop,” he argued. “All the Bush tax cuts expiring for middle-class residents as well as the wealthy, along with some pretty massive spending cuts that would hurt Connecticut pretty deeply, would be irresponsible. We need to get back to Washington, bring Republicans and Democrats together, avoid this fiscal cliff and then have an adult conversation about how we really move forward.”
Paul Bass Photo
Murphy checks in with Joann Bonanno at Vito’s.
Murphy was more specific about lunch. His New Haven stop Thursday was one of three lunch spots he hit within three and a half hours. Was he really intending to eat a meal at each?
No, he said. “I think I’m going to eat here.”
He ordered an Italian combo with mozzarella.
From the sound bite I heard on WSHU this morning it sounds as if he favors postponing the deadline so as to have more time to negotiate. I hope not; that's just more kicking the can down the road. I'm with Paul Krugman in the NYT: call the GOP bluff, let the Bush tax cuts expire en masse, then dare the GOP not to vote for a new tax CUT that targets only households under 250,000 or a million.