Cantor: GOP will have the votes to pass 'Plan B' Updated 12:39 p.m. - The No. 2 House Republican said Thursday that the GOP would have the votes to pass its "Plan B" solution to the fiscal cliff, and urged the Democratic Senate to follow suit. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said that Republicans intended to follow through with their vote to pass a pair of bills which would preserve tax rates on income less than $1 million and approve new spending cuts in place of the automatic cuts -- many to defense -- set to take effect on Jan. 1. "Absent a balanced option from the president, this is our nation's best option," Cantor told reporters on Capitol Hill. And Senate Democrats should take up both of these measures immediately. President Barack Obama has promised to veto the legislation; it is virtually dead-on-arrival in the Senate, where Democrats oppose the proposal. Retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison tells The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd that she remains hopeful that leaders are working behind closed doors to strike a deal in the fiscal cliff negotiations and believes there is a way forward. "Until Republicans take up our bill in the House -- the one that passed here -- there's nothing to discuss," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. We're not taking up any of the things they're working on over there now. "Let me be absolutely clear: Speaker Boehner's plans are nonstarters in the Senate," Reid added. With less than 12 days until the tax hikes and spending cuts which compose the "fiscal cliff" will snap into place, Republicans remain locked in a stalemate with Obama over the extent of the expiring tax rates they should extend, as well as how deep of cuts should be made -- and to which programs. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., second from right, walks to a Republican strategy session with Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. Republicans' Plan B proposal came after the White House offered a deal in which no taxes would go up on income under $400,000, along with changes as to how Social Security benefits would be allowed to grow in coming years. But the administration views the plan as a non-starter, meaning that today's vote serves little more purpose than to posture the GOP for the final stages of negotiations (or, for the political fallout that would result from going over the fiscal cliff.) A handful of conservative Republicans, who oppose tax increases in virtually every instance, have said they would vote against their leadership on Plan B, making House Speaker John Boehner's, R-Ohio, task in approving the bill more difficult. Boehner can suffer only 24 defections from fellow Republicans if no Democrats break ranks and support the plan. Cantor, on Thursday, confidently predicted the bill would have adequate support when it reaches a final vote, tentatively scheduled for this evening. The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd speaks with House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer about the latest on the fiscal cliff negotiations. "We're going to have the votes to pass both the permanent tax relief bill as well as the spending reduction bill," he said. A failure to pass the bill would send a powerful signal about the ideological divide within the GOP, and also deprive House Republicans of an alternative to the president's plan to which they could point in the instance of a fiscal cliff failure. The impending Christmas holiday -- along with some congressional leaders' travel to Hawaii this weekend for the funeral of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D -- means there are few working days left for Republicans to resolve their standoff with Democrats and Obama. Reid said that senators would be asked to return to Washington next Thursday, four days before the fiscal cliff, on Dec. 27. Cantor said that the plan -- as of now -- was for lawmakers to stay in Washington following tonight's Plan B vote. "We do not intend to send members home after this vote," he said. We want to stay here, we want to avoid the fiscal cliff from happening.