WASHINGTON (AP) – Senators bickered Sunday over who’s to blame for lurching the country toward a year-end “fiscal cliff,” bemoaning the lack of a deal days before the deadline but bridging no differences in the debate.

With the collapse Thursday of House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to allow tax rates to rise on million-dollar-plus incomes, Sen. Joe Lieberman said “it’s the first time that I feel it’s more likely we’ll go over the cliff than not,” meaning that higher taxes for most Americans and painful federal agency budget cuts would be in line to go ahead.

“If we allow that to happen it will be the most colossal consequential act of congressional irresponsibility in a long time, maybe ever in American history because of the impact it’ll have on almost every American,” said Lieberman, a Connecticut independent.