As President Barack Obama cut short a Christmas vacation to resume talks to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of automatic year-end tax hikes and spending cuts, the White House on Wednesday called on congressional Republicans not to stand in the way of a resolution in the U.S. Congress.

“It’s up to the Senate Minority Leader not to block a vote, and it’s up the House Republican leader, the Speaker of the House … to allow a vote,” a senior administration official told reporters traveling with the president…

“If you think about the possibility of Congress failing to act to avert the fiscal cliff, combined with the abomination of what occurred in the summer of 2011, hits to our economy aren’t coming from external factors, they’re coming from congressional stupidity,” the official said.