Pressure Now on Sen. Reid for Fiscal Cliff Deal

Does he have a Plan C?

With President Obama and the Senate headed back to Washington, the impetus is on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to come up with a new plan to avoid  the fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, when a set of automatic budget cuts and tax increases will take hold if Democrats and Republicans fail to  come together on a deal.

House Republican leaders  said it was time for the Senate to step up the fiscal cliff negotiations after a conference call Friday.

"The House has acted on two bills which collectively would avert the entire fiscal cliff if enacted," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., wrote in a joint statement released this afternoon. "Those bills await action by the Senate.  If the Senate will not approve and send them to the president to be signed into law in their current form, they must be amended and returned to the House."