Tim Delaney had hoped to see family in Texas and Arizona for the holidays. Now, the chief executive officer of the National Council of Nonprofits is stuck in Washington because of a deadlock in US budget negotiations.
“Holiday? Really?” said Delaney, who needs to keep his members informed as Congress and the White House approach a December 31 deadline to avoid a combination of expiring Bush-era tax breaks and automatic spending cuts.
The stalemate has disrupted the holidays for industry representatives, attorneys, financial analysts, lobbyists and others who must keep tabs on the talks. They are holding back on vacations, working through them or being put on call.
“Nobody knows what Congress will or will not be doing,” Delaney said in a telephone interview. “Historically, they’ve not met on Christmas Eve. But if they do, I will be here. If they don’t, I will still be here, monitoring what’s going on.”
Richard Whittington, an analyst at Drexel Hamilton LLC in New York, said he still plans to take a holiday ski trip to Colorado. The budget impasse may limit his time on the slopes. “We’ve got a federal budget showdown that’s very high- stakes poker,” Whittington said in a telephone interview. “The outcome is going to have a material bearing on defence stocks come January, one way or the other.”
Watching C-SPAN
Brian Ruttenbur, an analyst at CRT Capital Group LLC, said he plans to spend a good portion of the holidays in his home office, watching C-SPAN to keep an eye on the budget debate. He lives with his wife and their eight children in Nashville, Tennessee.
An associate who normally takes time off around the holidays will be working instead at the company’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, so they’re ready when trading resumes on January 2, Ruttenbur said. “I have to prepare for the first day of markets to write a note saying either we’ve gone over the cliff or we haven’t,” he said, referring to what has become known as the fiscal cliff. “That’s why I’m watching.”
Washington’s lobbying shops, known collectively as K Street, where many of them were once located, also are watching. Dan Tate, a lobbyist at Forbes-Tate LLC, said his office would normally be shut for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. With the negotiations continuing, the firm’s lobbyists may have to work, he said.
“This time, we have to assess where everybody is to make sure we have enough people to cover in case anything happens,” Tate said.
Online shopping
Forbes-Tate represents Comcast Corp, Honda Motor Co’s US unit, and a utility group that includes American Electric Power Co and Duke Energy Corp Tate said he “can’t think of a single client that doesn’t care” about the outcome of the budget talks.
Trust and estate lawyers have been especially busy as their clients prepare for current exemptions on gifts and estates to expire at the year’s end.
People who were waiting to see if lawmakers would extend current levels are now deciding to act, said Bobbi Bierhals, a partner and estate planning attorney at McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Chicago.
For Bierhals, the last-minute rush means that holiday planning has taken a back seat. So far, the only shopping she’s been able to do has been online. “I don’t recall the last time I left the office before 9 pm,” she said. “I’m just appreciative of my husband who has managed all of our holiday obligations thus far.”
Ladies bathroom
Bierhals said she’s seen little of her children, ages one and three. On December 11, she didn’t see them in the morning or the evening. “I didn’t see them at all,” she said.
The combination of more than $600 billion in tax increases and automatic spending cuts is scheduled to take effect in January unless President Barack Obama and Congress delay them or reach an alternate agreement.
The White House and lawmakers have warned their staffs that they might be spending the holidays in Washington, as both sides publicly refused to budge from their positions on taxes and spending.
The standoff was spoofed over the weekend by NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” House Speaker John Boehner, portrayed by SNL’s Bill Hader, was in tears after being bullied by Republican lawmakers who pelted him with rotten eggs and pushed him into the congressional ladies bathroom.
