Early reports: House likely to kill fiscal cliff deal with amendments

BREAKING: House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) driving opposition to Senate-passed budget deal
' @thehill via web

The House Republican conference has been meeting since 1:00 ET, and it appears to be splintering. According to MSNBC's Mike Viqueira and others, Eric Cantor is leading the opposition to the bill, and "he [Cantor] cannot support the bill. He cannot support the Senate bill. [...] The House is going to vote to amend the bill." And it appears that Cantor is directly confronting Boehner.

Huelskamp says conservatives in House pleasantly surprised to see Cantor come out and knock down deal in front of Boehner
' @robertcostaNRO via Twitter for BlackBerry®

As of now, it looks like the House Republicans will insist on amending the bill to include more spending cuts, not content to wait the two months for the next round of cliff, and debt ceiling, negotiations set up by the Senate to try to enact more cuts. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) essentially confirms that, saying after leaving the just concluded GOP conference meeting, "I'll be shocked if this isn't sent back to the Senate." Amending it and sending it back to the Senate will kill it, with Sen. Dick Durbin answering when asked if for the Senate, it's the Senate deal or the cliff:  "At this point I'm afraid so."

Stay tuned. House Republicans are expected to hold a press conference any minute now.

12:42 PM PT: Democratic Senate leaders say they will not take up bill amended by House Republicans: "We're done."
http://t.co/...
— @politicalwire via Twitter for Mac

1:14 PM PT: The House Republicans are apparently in a second meeting. This is not likely to be figured out soon. And the splintering isn't just in the GOP caucus:

Appears the House GOP's pie-in-the-sky caucus will blow up the deal, leaving new higher tax rates in place and assuring Rs get all blame.
— @brithume via Twitter for iPad 1:20 PM PT: House &  Senate really starting to run out of time now. No Rules Cmte meeting yet for #fiscalcliff or #Sandy bill. New Congress starts Jan 3
— @ChadPergram via web