Heidi Przybyla

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said lawmakers in Congress are “very, very close” to a deal to avert $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set to start at midnight.

The White House and congressional negotiators agreed to contours of a budget deal including tax cut extensions, with the remaining sticking point being how to avert automatic federal spending cuts, said an official familiar with the talks.

House Republicans, rejecting President Obama’s demand for higher tax rates, countered with a $2.2 trillion deficit-cutting plan that would trim Medicare and Social Security and cap tax deductions for top earners.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner offered Republican House Speaker John Boehner a proposal to avert an end-of-the-year fiscal cliff that would trade $1.6 trillion in tax increases for $400 billion in unspecified entitlement program cuts, a Republican aide said.

The co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s 2010 fiscal commission said it’s unlikely the president and Congress will reach a deal by the end of this year to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.