House gavels out, back at 4:30 for suspension bill work

The House gaveled in at 2 p.m., but only stayed in session for about 15 minutes, and did not hear any update from Republican or Democratic leaders about today's ongoing fiscal cliff talks.

The House is expected back at 4:30 p.m. to take up more than a dozen suspension bills, all of them unrelated to the cliff.

Members of the House and Senate are expected to be meeting in the middle of the afternoon to discuss the status of the talks.

The talks hit a snag early Sunday after Republicans insisted on calculating Social Security benefit growth in a way that would lead to reduced benefits. The chained consumer price index (chained CPI) proposal would mitigate the rate of inflation used to calculate benefits by considering consumer spending pattern changes in response to rising prices.