In a late night vote, the fiscal cliff bill passed the US House, 256-167. 151 Republicans voted against the measure, while 85 voted in favor along with 172 Democrats. President Obama will crow, he will call for an end to politics while taking partisan jibes at Republicans, and sign it into law.
There was never much of a chance that the Republicans would get much after Plan B’s failure last week. Whatever emerged from the House would have to get some Democratic votes. The Republican leadership, such as it is, has been weakened by this fight though it has resulted in the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts being made permanent.
The deal sets up another major budget fight in 60 days, when the Congress and White House will take up the sequester, again, which was postponed in the current deal, and the debt ceiling. Democrat Rep. Sander Levin signaled that the Democrats would use that fight to call for tax hikes again rather than deal with spending, which was not dealt with in the current deal. The White House is staking out a position that it does not wish to haggle over the debt ceiling at all. These are both extreme positions, but the media will consistently fail to call them out, while blaming Republicans for the “partisanship.”
The pattern is now set for that next fight. There will be several weeks of verbal jousting with little action, followed by a frenzy at the end and a bill passed that the American people have little if any chance to read and understand before it becomes law of the land. That is how Barack Obama and his Democrats operate. The media consistently fails to call them out.
By the way, even though a deal has passed and will be signed, your taxes went up anyway.
Addenda: The 41-1 stat everyone including yours truly noted earlier today is almost surely wrong. It’s more like 10-to-1 in favor of tax hikes over spending cuts.
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