Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Democratic leaders say they will move ahead on a bill only if the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, center, assures them that it will not be filibustered.
WASHINGTON — With little more than a week for lawmakers to avert huge tax increases and spending cuts, attention is turning from the gridlocked House to the Senate, where some Republicans on Sunday endorsed President Obama's call for a partial deal to insulate most Americans from the tax increases but defer a resolution on spending.
Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, both Republicans, implored Senate leaders to reach an accommodation with Mr. Obama when Congress returns on Thursday, even if that meant that taxes would go up for those with high incomes and that spending cuts would be put off.
Mrs. Hutchison, appearing on the CBS program "Face the Nation," said the tax cuts signed into law by President George W. Bush should be extended "at a reasonable salary level."
"We can't let taxes go up on working people in this country," she said, backing Mr. Obama's calls for a stripped-down temporary measure. "It is going to be a patch because, in four days, we can't solve everything."
Speaker John A. Boehner's failed attempt on Thursday to attract enough Republican support in the House for legislation that would have prevented tax increases on income below $1 million left little chance for a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction.
It also shifted the action to the Senate as the last hope to stop more than half a trillion dollars in tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts from kicking in on Jan. 1. The president urged senators to take up legislation extending the Bush-era tax cuts on income under $250,000 and preventing the expiration of unemployment benefits, while delaying the defense and domestic spending cuts to allow negotiations on a deficit deal continue.
"The fact that the House Republicans spent a week wasting time we didn't have has greatly exacerbated the problem," said Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama's communications director.
The hope is that the less polarized Senate will be different from the House. It is run by Democrats and includes several Republicans who are openly backing a deal.
"The president's statement is right," Mr. Isakson said Sunday on the ABC program "This Week." "No one wants taxes to go up on the middle class. I don't want them to go up on anybody, but I'm not in the majority in the United States Senate, and he's the president of the United States."
"The truth of the matter is, if we do fall off the cliff after the president is inaugurated, he'll come back, propose just what he proposed yesterday in leaving Washington, and we'll end up adopting it," Mr. Isakson continued. "But why should we put the markets in such turmoil and the people in such misunderstanding or lack of confidence? Why not go ahead and act now?"
Democratic leaders say they will move forward on legislation this week only if Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, can assure them that it will not be filibustered and that once it is passed Mr. Boehner will bring it to a vote in the House.
Mr. McConnell has played the role of Congressional deal closer before. Last year, he engineered a way to raise the nation's statutory borrowing limit that satisfied Republicans and Democrats alike. He also threw his weight behind an extension of the expiring two-percentage-point cut in the payroll tax, even after House Republicans tried to block it.
But in this case, neither he nor the junior members of his leadership have given any indication that they will intervene.
"It's hard to overstate how little is going on," said a senior Democratic leadership aide in the Senate, indicating what most lawmakers say in private: the country is likely to miss the Jan. 1 deadline.
Investors are anticipating a turbulent week in the markets if the White House and Congress continue their standoff. Last Friday, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell nearly 1 percent as pessimism mounted over the prospect of any deal being reached.
Republican leaders in both chambers of Congress appear stymied by a conservative wing that will not tolerate a vote on legislation that even tacitly allows taxes to rise. Don Stewart, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, said the minority leader could not declare by fiat that a bill could be presented for a simple majority vote with no threat of a filibuster. That would require the consent of every Republican, and Mr. Stewart gave no indication that Mr. McConnell would seek it.
Asked if Republicans might filibuster the president's backup plan, Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, a member of the Republican leadership, said on "Fox News Sunday": "I just don't think this is going to solve the problems — it actually doesn't solve the problems. We have a spending problem in this country."
Besides, Mr. Stewart said, Democrats have yet to detail the legislation they want a vote on. The Senate passed legislation in July to extend expiring income tax rates on income under $250,000, but divided Democrats could not agree on a new level for the estate tax, which is also scheduled to rise in January, nor did they include a provision to stave off $100 billion in across-the-board cuts to defense and domestic programs next year.
Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington, and Nathaniel Popper from New York.
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