Lawmakers continue to struggle with fiscal issues in Washington, with a great of deal of attention and finger pointing on the range of issues that will come to a head in the fall and after the election, including fiscal year 2013 appropriations, how to handle the expiring “Bush” tax cuts, the need to raise the debt ceiling again in late 2012/early 2013, and the mandatory spending cuts scheduled to take effect in January of next year unless an alternative plan is put in place.

House Democratic and Republican leaders traded barbs over these issues despite the recess.  Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) criticized President Obama’s economic agenda, invoking cash-strapped Greece as the “ghost of Christmas future” for the U.S., while Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) criticized Boehner for threatening to again drag out any debt limit negotiations. Pelosi said her idea of balance includes dropping the expiring tax breaks for upper-income earners and adopting the fiscal safeguards in the deficit reduction report by the president’s 2010 fiscal commission, commonly referred to as the Simpson-Bowles plan. She suggested that if Boehner genuinely wants to break the legislative stalemate, he need only bring the universally agreed-upon provisions up for consideration.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R, NV) indicated this week that he does not see a way to reach bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction or taxes before the November elections. The Nevada Democrat wrote a terse letter dated May 21 in response to a letter signed by 41 Senate Republicans demanding immediate action on extending Bush-era tax cuts that expire at the end of this year. In his letter, Reid suggested that the GOP senators’ concerns were not legitimate unless they agreed to compromise on a deficit reduction package that includes tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.

A new Congressional Budget Office report says the many fiscal issues coming together at the end of the year would likely throw the U.S. economy into recession if Congress does not act to forestall the impact of expiring tax cuts, automatic spending cuts and other events. Inaction on the so-called “fiscal cliff” would limit economic growth to just 0.5 percent in 2013, according to the CBO report released Tuesday, including a 1.3 percent contraction in the first half of the year. That’s a decline, the non-partisan, independent arm of Congress said, that “would probably be judged to be a recession.”

In an attempt to counter assertions that there is a so-called “Republican war on women,” Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R, CA) this week announced the formation of the Republican’s Women’s Policy Committee, which she will chair. The House caucus is made up of 24 Republican women Members of Congress from 17 states.

Senate Leader Reid on Thursday filed for cloture on legislation strengthening penalties against employers who discriminate based on sex.  The Senate is likely to vote on the motion during the week of June 4.  Senator Barbara Mikulski  (D, MD) re-introduced S. 3220, the Paycheck Fairness Act, on Tuesday.  This procedural move allowed the sponsors to bypass the committee process and send the bill directly to the Senate floor for consideration.

The week ahead… House Republican leaders signaled Thursday they will move forward on more appropriations bills soon after the Memorial Day recess, pushing along the process of setting spending levels for the 2013 fiscal year. The House Rules Committee announced it would meet May 30 to set voting rules on three spending bills — Military Construction-VA (HR 5854), Energy-Water (HR 5325) and Homeland Security (HR 5855) — along with the intelligence authorization measure (HR 5743).   The Senate will be in recess.