Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said that certain Democrats, including the president, see political victory by forcing the U.S. over the 'fiscal cliff' Thursday morning on CNN. Barrasso contended the "trifecta" of tax increases, cuts to military spending, and blaming the GOP for the failure of negotiations are all conducive to the Democratic agenda. The senator predicted that a forthcoming failure of negotiations will cause "serious economic problems for our country":
SOLEDAD OBRIEN: There's a poll out this week from cnn and the question is who will be more responsible if the fiscal cliff happens, which is in just about 280 hours we go over the cliff. We've kind of turned from talking about days to talking about hours, which always scares me. You know who gets the bulk of the blame? The GOP in Congress gets the blame. They are held responsible. President Obama gets 37% of the blame, the GOP is 48%. For people who think it's both, that's 11%. How concerned are you about the backlash from an electorate that is already saying we feel it's the gop that's going to get a hefty portion of the blame here?
JOHN BARRASSO: Well, my bigger concern is for the American people. I think if we go over the cliff, I see an economic disaster over the cliff in terms of a second recession, unemployment rates going up. But it appears to me that the president and Howard Dean as well as one of the leading senators, Patty Murray, has said, no, let's go over the cliff because they see political victory at the bottom of the cliff, which is one, as you just say, blaming Republicans. Number two, they get all of the tax increases, all this new revenue they can spend on other new programs and additionally they get all the cuts to the military that so many Democrats have wanted over the years. So they see kind of a trifecta over the cliff where I see economic problems for our country.