Jim DeMint (R-SC) tells Hugh Hewitt he will not vote for cloture on the Obama-McConnell tax cut deal:

HH: Do you think a left-right coalition exists in either the Senate or the House to defeat the deal?

JD: Well, I was kind of holding my fire to let the liberals blast this thing first. I have a feeling that, I don’t know if it’s pretense or whatever, but a lot of the liberals are upset that the President is not raising taxes on upper income and small businesses. So I was going to try to see if the liberals might go after it first. But it does appear to me that there are going to be problems on the left and the right with this bill.

HH: Now is there a substantial number of Republican Senators who agree with you, Jim DeMint?

JD: I’m not sure yet. I mean, there are a lot of people advocating for it, saying this is the best that we can get. But I’ve talked to a number of the conservatives today who have grave concerns. I know a lot of them won’t vote for it unless it’s paid for. I don’t think the Democrats are going to cut spending enough to pay for this, because it’s getting close to $200 billion dollars in more deficit spending. So I think there’s going to be a lot of fallout on the Republican side, and I suspect even on the Democrat side, because they don’t want, I mean, they want taxes to go up, just not for their constituents.

Bernie Sanders has also said he will filibuster the deal.

The New York Times reports that Joe Biden headed to the Hill today, but “failed to convince many of his old Senate colleagues to line up behind the plan at a tense lunch meeting.”

Mitch McConnell called the plan “essentially final” and predicted that a “vast majority” of Senate Republicans will back it.

On the House side Michele Bachmann, Chairwoman of the Tea Party Caucus, has said that GOP members of the House could oppose the plan.