Influence Alley

Senate Republicans hope to vote Monday night on a package to avert the fiscal cliff, according to members leaving an evening caucus meeting.

"We'd like to vote before midnight," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said a vote could take place in the early morning on Tuesday. 

The last remaining piece of a fiscal cliff compromise between the Democratic administration and Senate Republicans is figuring out how to pay for a two-month delay of the drastic spending cuts--known as sequestration--slated to begin on Wednesday, Hutchison said.

"That whole sequester piece I think is what's really left,” she said.

The compromise negotiated between Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joseph Biden will include some deficit reduction, she added. While “no one is going to say this is wonderful," the deal "is the very best for the most people in America that we can get with a divided Congress," Hutchison said.

The deal includes a one-year extension of the farm bill, which expired on Sept. 30. An extension of the Medicare doc-fix will be paid for, though an extension of long-term unemployment insurance will not. The bill has yet to be scored, she said.