By Lucas Tomlinson

An outspoken Tea Party congressman and deficit hawk says that a government shutdown may be necessary if President Obama and his fellow Democrats won't go beyond the "dollar for dollar" cuts that were part of the last agreement to raise the federal debt limit.

"If that is what it takes to prevent this generational theft, we'll see, but I hope that is not the outcome," said Rep. Scott DesJarlais, a Tennessee Republican. "For a president that said he would cut the deficit in half or be a one term president and now has added $4 trillion and rising, we have to do something to wake people up," warned DesJarlais.

Appearing on "Power Play with Chris Stirewalt," DesJarlais said he would like to see stronger measures taken to reduce spending-measures that go beyond House Speaker John Boehner's plan to link spending cuts with a debt ceiling raise. According to the Treasury Department, the debt ceiling was reached on Monday, New Year's Eve, when the U.S. government's debt obligations reached $16.394 trillion.

"[The Boehner Rule] keeps us at an even keel, but Congress tends to overspend what it projects," said an incredulous DesJarlais. (read more)

Today is the start of the 113th Congress, and the action kicks off at noon when both the House and Senate return.

Once the House formally ends the 112th session, House Clerk Karen Haas will convene the House and presides from the dais. First up is a quorum call, establishing the membership.

Then we get the nominations for speaker. The Republicans will nominate John Boehner and the Democrats Nancy Pelosi. The full House votes for speaker. They call each member's name alphabetically and they respond by name.

The House starts with 433 members -- short of the full 435 due to two vacancies. The breakdown is 233 Republicans and 200 Democrats.

The next part is important:

It is very unlikely that the House will pick a speaker besides Boehner, but not out of the question. But ... the House could kick the election of speaker to a second ballot.

We expect the vote for speaker to begin around 12:45 p.m. ET or so.

Here's the troublesome scenario for Boehner:

The House clerk states that when picking a speaker, "a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes cast - which may be less than a majority of the full House because of vacancies, absentee Members or Members who vote 'present.' If no candidate receives the majority of votes, the roll call is repeated until a majority is reached and the Speaker is elected." (read more)

As nasty as the battle over the fiscal crisis bill looked on the floors of Congress, it was even nastier behind the scenes.

Sources confirmed to Fox News that House Speaker John Boehner told Harry Reid to "go f--- yourself" while passing by the Senate majority leader at the White House Friday.

The outburst came after Reid, on Thursday, took to the floor and likened Boehner to a dictator. Reid had claimed Boehner was holding back a bill out of concern for his speakership. 

"John Boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership than about keeping the nation on firm financial footing," Reid said Thursday, claiming the chamber was "being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker."

Boehner did not take kindly to the accusation. Politico first reported that Boehner swore at Reid when he saw him the next day at the White House, where congressional leaders were convening for a meeting. 

Reid reportedly seemed startled, asking, "What are you talking about?" Boehner then repeated, "Go f--- yourself." 

Boehner's office offered "no comment" on the incident.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

There is A LOT of trepidation among House Republicans about the bill passed overwhelmingly by the Senate this morning.

I have not emailed or spoken with a single House Republican who was excited about this bill. Perhaps that is to be expected because the nature of this legislation forced everyone had to hold their noses and vote for it. And at first blush, most would argue that such an overwhelming vote of 89-8 (three Democratic nays and five Republican noes) would apply SERIOUS pressure to the House to pass this measure quickly and with a strong, bipartisan vote.

But as the Bard of Stratford-on-Avon wrote, “what is past is prologue.”

And it applies big time right here on Capitol Hill.

On Dec. 16, 2011, the Senate scrambled to forge a bipartisan agreement to renew the payroll tax break which was expiring at the end of the year. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was the primary author of the package, engineering the deal. The Senate met on Saturday morning, Dec. 17, and passed the bill 89-10. 

Many believed a piece of legislation with McConnell’s imprimatur would sail through the House. (read more)

While senators were aiming for an early morning vote on their in-the-works fiscal deal, calculations from congressional number-crunchers quickly raised questions about how House Republicans would take it. 

In short, according to rough calculations forwarded by a source close to the talks, the proposal would include $620 billion in new tax hikes and $15 billion in net spending cuts. 

That kind of lopsided ratio could turn off House conservatives, presuming the bill clears the Senate. 

One Republican predicted House leaders may only be able to attract 70 Republicans in the chamber. 

The tax hikes would mostly come from an increase on families making more than $450,000. 

The value of net cuts, though, was held back because of the sheer amount of spending in the proposal. Long-term jobless benefits, for example, would be extended for a year, at a cost of $30 billion. 

Fox News’ Ed Henry and Chad Pergram contributed to this report. 

Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH) found himself presiding over the House of Representatives Thursday night as the GOP narrowly passed a bill to cut spending. That's part of the Republican solution to avert the fiscal cliff. At the end of the vote sequence, the House would launch debate on what House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) characterized as Plan B, an effort to renew tax breaks for Americans earning less than $1,000,000 a year.

And without warning, the Republican leadership instructed Bass to rap the gavel and pitch the House into an unexpected recess.

"I had no idea," Bass said moments later when asked if he was aware the impromptu recess was coming. "And they told me to make it snappy, too."

Improvised recesses are never a good sign in Congress. They're almost always a signal the majority party doesn't have the votes to pass the critical bill at hand.

There were shooting rampages in the mid-1980s and ‘90s. James Huberty burst into a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, CA in July, 1984. He fired 192 armor-piercing bullets during a 77-minute shooting spree, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others.

In 1985, the House of Representatives cited Huberty’s attack when it voted to ban access to “cop-killer” bullets which can pierce armor. 

But the tide began to turn in 1991. The House wrestled with a massive crime bill in October, 1991, just days after George Hennard rammed his Ford Ranger pickup through the glass window of a Luby’s Cafeteria. Hennard killed 23 people and wounded 20 with a Glock 17 pistol and Ruger P89. Some lawmakers tried to prohibit 13 types of assault-type weapons and 17-round ammunition magazines, similar to the one used by Hennard. 

“We’re led to believe that we need an assault weapon to go out and kill Bambi,” said then-Rep. Butler Derrick (D-SC).

But the House rejected those efforts with the help of the late-Rep. Harold Volkmer (D-MO), an NRA board member. Volkmer decried the provision as “the most far-reaching restriction on gun owners…that’s ever been considered by Congress.” 

But everything really changed in the summer of 1994.  (read more)

by Lucas Tomlinson

Today on “Power Play with Chris Stirewalt,” Harlem Rep. Charlie Rangel was asked what Republicans should be doing to help rescue the country from the “fiscal cliff.” Rangel responded, “They should recognize the election is over."

"Republicans have made some hard and fast commitments that were more in line with a political campaign than what is good for the country. It’s very difficult for the Speaker to count on their support when they don’t know how to turn around,” he said.  Rangel added, “One of the things that’s abundantly clear: the taxes on the top 2%--the rates are going to increase. How they find ways to say that?…I don’t know.”

Rangel insisted that Republicans capitulate on this issue before addressing savings in spending programs, something Republicans have long demanded.

“But if you hold on to these commitments to outsiders--non lawmakers about, ‘under no circumstances will we increase taxes on anyone, including the rich,’ it’s just not going to work,” Rangel predicted.

Speaking optimistically about the future, Rangel said, “Fortunately, a lot of Republicans in the House and Senate recognize this and they are coming back to reality.” When asked why it matters where additional revenue comes from if the net result of deduction reductions or tax rate increases is the same, Rangel said it was a matter of fairness. (read more)

Top U.S. intelligence official James Clapper plans to hold a House-wide, classified briefing Wednesday on the Libya terror attack, Fox News has learned.

The bipartisan briefing is set for Wednesday morning and is expected to include a host of top officials at the center of the controversy. 

Lawmakers continue to raise concerns about the administration's initial claim after the attack that it was a "spontaneous" act that sprung out of protests over an anti-Islam film. The administration has since acknowledged that, while demonstrations were raging in Cairo, there was no protest in Benghazi at the time of the attack.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice took heat for repeatedly citing the film in interviews five days after the strike. But officials have blamed flawed intelligence for the assessment.

Further, lawmakers want to know more about what warning signs the administration might have had in the weeks and months leading up to the attack.

The briefing Wednesday is set to include State Department Undersecretary of Management Patrick Kennedy and Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olsen.

The closed briefing will include a "multimedia presentation." (read more)

President Obama on Monday asked Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to stay on for a second term as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

In a tweet, the president said: "I've asked Debbie Wasserman Schultz to continue her excellent work as chair of the DNC. Thanks for all you do, Debbie."

The Florida congresswoman, who has presided over the party infrastructure for nearly two years, was expected to accept.

While Democrats were unable to take back the House of Representatives in congressional elections last month, they held the White House and built on their majority in the Senate.

The party is expected to formally pick its leaders at a meeting next month.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.