Once again, President Barack Obama dodged the key "fiscal cliff" issues at a campaign rally/press conference Wednesday morning.

Campaign-style, he argued that the middle-class tax cuts (below $250,000) must be renewed in order to prevent a $2,200 average tax hike from hitting middle-class folks. He added that a middle-class tax hike would cost consumers $200 billion in spending power. (Read More: Obama: Let's Get 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal Before Christmas.)

Right after the election, it was all peaches and cream and conciliatory common-ground language when President Barack Obama met with congressional leaders to discuss the "fiscal cliff."

Of course, the president campaigned on tax hikes for the rich, by which he meant raising top income-tax rates and extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes below $200,000. (Read More: Obama: Ending Tax Cuts for Rich Resolves Half of 'Cliff.')

In the event the US goes off the Fiscal Cliff, don't expect the Fed to shield markets from the worst.

In a live interview on The Kudlow Report, the hawkish Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said he'd resist that kind of intervention.

"I do not see us as that kind safety net," he said. "There's got to be a limit. In committee we'd have to decide what kind of limit, but there's got to be a limit."

Ahead of the election, Mitt Romney scored well on economic issues – with many polls saying Romney was viewed as better for the economy than Barack Obama.

It appears Democrats in the Senate and House are heeding those results.

A plan presented by Romney and embraced by the GOP to cap deductions appears to be gaining traction despite Romney's loss.

"Let's just say there's a renewed interest," said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee in a New York Times Report.

As Republicans return to Congress to tackle the "fiscal cliff", will they find a sincere attempt to compromise or just a sore winner?

That's a big worry among GOP leaders – as they attempt to negotiate a deal to avoid going over the edge.

Sorry OPEC. There's a new heavy hitter in the oil markets and it's not about to be pushed around by you.

According to a new report from the IEA, the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer by 2017.

You read that right – the United States.

A federal budget deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff" can be achieved without raising tax rates, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl said Friday on CNBC.

"Tax revenues can be generated by two ways other than raising tax rates," he said. "One is to eliminate some of the deductions, credits, exemptions, special provisions in the code that end up producing more revenue but without affecting the rates. And the other is through economic growth."

On "The Kudlow Report," the junior senator from Arizona said he thought it likely a deal could be struck to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff," a deadline by which the lack of a federal budget would result in the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and trigger automatic spending cuts.

Kyl saw additional revenues as the key.

In the fierce headline debate over the so-called "fiscal cliff" — when tax cuts expire and automatic spending reductions go into effect, our newly re-elected president argues that "a majority of Americans agree with [his] approach."

That approach, according to President Barack Obama, is "to combine spending cuts with revenue — and that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes." (Read More: Obama 'Open to New Ideas' but Rich Must Pay More.)

Well, that's not exactly what the exit polls said.

A top congressional Republican on Thursday expressed hope that a budget deal would be reached that gives both parties some of what they want — unless it involves a tax increase.

House Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam made overtures toward avoiding the so-called "fiscal cliff," which would trigger automatic federal spending cuts and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

Although Obama had campaigned on a platform of raising marginal tax rates, Roskim dismissed such talk as "flowery rhetoric that he used to pump up his base."

"I predict he will do it again, simply because the House is not going to pass a tax hike," he said. "It's just not going to happen."

On "The Kudlow Report," the Illinois lawmaker said Republicans were "in favor of more revenues."

Although capital gains taxes could rise following President Barack Obama's re-election, something else signals a positive factor for the U.S. economy, Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget said Wednesday on CNBC.

On "The Kudlow Report," Blodget was asked if it was possible investors were jumping to worst-case conclusions too soon on a day that saw a 2 percent drop in the stock market.

"I think it's likely that capital gains are going to go up a bit, not punitively, but a bit," he said. "So the fact that investors are taking advantage of that, selling now and so forth makes perfect sense."

But the most positive sign for the economy was a signal that Republicans would work with the White House to reach a budget deal and avoid the "fiscal cliff," which would see an expiration of the Bush tax cuts and trigger automatic federal spending cuts in January.