Durbin (left) sounded grudging in his support for a compromise with McConnell. | AP photos Extension deal taxes Dems' patience

The deal that Democrats, Republicans and the White House appear to be stepping gingerly but inexorably toward to wrap up the lame-duck congressional session is generating some grumbling from Democrats that they won't be particularly pleased with the likely outcome.

"We're only moving there against my judgment and my own particular view of things,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation."


Democrats and Republicans appearing on the Sunday morning political talk shows all described or hinted at the same broad outlines for a deal: Expiring Bush-era tax cuts would be extended, probably for two years, and expiring unemployment benefits would be extended to cover Americans who have long been out of work during the deep recession.

While Democrats sounded grudging in their support for such a compromise, GOP senators sounded more upbeat about the direction of the debate.

“I think it’s pretty clear now taxes are not going up on anybody in the middle of this recession,” McConnell said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “We're discussing how long we should maintain current tax rates. And there are other issues that many people feel are important to address.”

The year-end wish list for many Democrats includes an immigration liberalization measure known as the DREAM Act, as well as a Defense budget bill that contains a mechanism to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning openly gay servicemembers.

However, Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana said in an interview broadcast Sunday that President Barack Obama is stirring up resentment within Democratic ranks by trying to whittle down the agenda in order to allow time for the Senate to consider and ratify the START arms control treaty with Russia, in addition to the tax and unemployment-related measures.

“The problem with this, I think, is that Senator [Harry] Reid, the majority leader, has found that many Democrats don't want something quite that abrupt. They say, ‘We made a lot of promises out on the campaign trail. We have demanded that certain things come up, all sorts of things across the board. Don't cut us out of this,’” Lugar told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Now, the president is putting very strong pressure to cut them out of this…And they're resentful of that, as a matter of fact,” Lugar said.

Lugar, who has been a strong proponent of the START treaty, did not specify which agenda items the White House was seeking to jettison. On Friday, the White House summoned top advocates for “don’t ask” repeal to deny the existence of any deal that sacrifices their issue, which faces little prospect for legislative action in the next Congress.

Despite those assurances, proponents of “don’t ask” repeal were warned that the repeal legislation is unlikely to come to the Senate floor next week, where Harry Reid plans to spend a day and a half working on a judicial impeachment before turning later in the week to the DREAM Act, a measure funding assistance for 9/11 rescue workers, and an extra $250 payment for Social Security recipients.

For his part, Durbin said he believes Democrats should be insisting that any deal on taxes include a vote this year on increasing the debt limit—something House Republicans plan to stage a symbolic fight over early next year.

“I think, honestly, the debt ceiling ought to be a part of this—unlikely, but it’s part of the same conversation," Durbin said. He said he was "troubled" by the idea of extending the Bush-era tax rates without some symbolic reference to the looming debt problem.

“Clearly, the deficit is not an issue here any longer if we can justify giving a tax break to the wealthiest people in America,” Durbin said, referring to the views of his colleagues who favor extending all the tax cuts. “I wonder what I've been doing the last 10 months sitting in that deficit commission.”

McConnell wouldn’t discuss time-frames for the tax-cut extensions, but Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) indicated an openness to a two-to-three-year continuation.

“It seems to me we're willing to kick this over for about two or three” years,” Hatch said on CNN. “I—we would like it permanent, but we can't.”

“What Washington is all about: this is a town driven by a culture of procrastination,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) complained on CNN. “If you don't force fast action, what you'll end up doing is just kicking the can down the road.” He said he’d support a one-year extension of the current tax rates.

In short, Republicans seemed more sanguine Sunday about the direction of the debate and the negotiations than did Democrats. McConnell appeared particularly optimistic about the prospects for cooperation with the White House and he suggested Obama was finally giving Republicans their due.

“We've had more conversations in the last two weeks than we've had in the last two years. And I think that's a good sign, growing awareness that the power is going to be more symmetrical in the next Congress,” McConnell said on NBC. “I'm optimistic we'll be able to come together. … I think we are going to get there.”

McConnell also signaled that he believed Republicans had won the argument on tax policy. Even though a majority of senators sided with Democratic tax proposals in unusual votes Saturday, the Democratic plans to extend tax cuts only for those with net incomes of less than $250,000 or less than $1,000,000 both failed to get the 60-vote total needed to proceed in the face of a Republican filibuster.

“Look, this argument is over, David,” McConnell said to “Meet The Press” host David Gregory. “You and I can continue to engage in it, but it's over. The Senate voted yesterday. Every Republican and five Democrats said, ‘We're not raising taxes on anybody in the middle of a recession.’”

McConnell’s triumphalism seemed to rankle Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Appearing on the same program, he complained that Republicans seemed to be heading toward a deal that involved no sacrifice on their part.

“All he talked about was the need to come to them. All he talked about was if they could do something that makes us comfortable. That's not how you compromise,” Kerry said. “They need to have a little discomfort, just as we have a little discomfort.”

However, Kerry did not fault Obama and insisted that the president is doing all he can to press the Democratic agenda in the face of “phony recklessness” on the part of the GOP. Kerry seemed frustrated that Republicans have paid little political price for pursuing policy priorities like extending tax cuts for the wealthy and a limit to continuing unemployment payments on an emergency basis.

“The president is fighting to get unemployment insurance that they have held hostage. This is the point. People need to focus in America,” Kerry said. “The Republicans have been willing to hold unemployment hostage to this bonus tax cut that has the least impact and adds to the deficit.”

Still, some Democratic activists are wondering aloud what Obama will have to tout politically at the end of the lame-duck session if all that is achieved is an across-the-board extension of Bush-era tax cuts, continued unemployment benefits that have been already been repeatedly continued and, perhaps, a new arms control treaty with Russia, a country most Americans worry little about.

“Are they going to take to the streets in celebration? No,” said Heather Cronk of GetEqual, a group working for “don’t ask” repeal. “I really cannot point to anything that’s so monumental here that the White House and the Democratic caucuses should be going home and getting a beer.”

Liberal bloggers, columnists and commentators are convinced that the GOP has gotten the upper hand, in part because of a lack of fortitude on Obama’s part.

“The captors will win this battle, if they haven’t already by the time you read this, because Obama has seemingly surrendered his once-considerable abilities to act, decide or think,” columnist Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times. “The real problem is that he’s so indistinct no one across the entire political spectrum knows who he is. A chief executive who repeatedly presents himself as a conciliator, forever searching for the ‘good side’ of all adversaries and convening summits, in the end comes across as weightless, if not AWOL."

McConnell insisted Sunday that it was an open question whether Obama is likely to move to the political center in response to this year’s electoral results or toward the left to try to reenergize his political base for a reelection campaign in 2012.

“I hope he pivots and starts helping us reduce spending, reduce debt, ratify trade deals,” McConnell said on NBC. “I hope so. Well, we’ll find out.”

James Hohmann contributed to this story.