I have less than zero confidence in the House ~ ~ I'm not thrilled with the deal, but I think it is workable ~ we'll see ~ Sooz

Fiscal deal sails through Senate, awaits House action
By Steve Benen - Tue Jan 1, 2013 10:51 AM EST

In the end, it wasn't close. Despite the fact that no one on either side seemed especially impressed with the fiscal agreement negotiated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Biden, the deal nevertheless passed 89 to 8. Among the eight opponents were five Republicans and three Democrats.

The Senate did not quite make its midnight deadline -- the vote was held at nearly 2 a.m. -- but with House action delayed, it didn't much matter.

Despite widespread grumbling, leaders on both sides made statements expressing satisfaction. President Obama called the agreement "the right thing to do for our country," which was followed soon after by a similar statement from McConnell: "I think we can say we've done some good for the country."

From a progressive perspective, there's plenty to disapprove of in this compromise, and I'll explore the president's concessions in more detail later, but I'd note one observation in the agreement's defense: if you'd told me a week ago that the Senate would easily approve a fiscal deal with no Medicare cuts, no Social Security cuts, and no new spending cuts of any kind, I probably wouldn't have believed you. And yet, that's what happened.

In the short term, however, the more pressing question is whether the package will actually reach the president's desk. We can all think of plenty of instances in which a controversial measure will clear one chamber, only to run into stiff opposition in the other, and House passage today is hardly a sure thing.


Getting to 218 votes won't be easy.

Given the failure of House Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B," it seems obvious that a package like the Senate deal won't enjoy the backing of most House Republicans, and will need a whole lot of Democratic votes to secure a majority. With that in mind, it's worth noting that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has signed off on the deal, and one of her top lieutenants, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), believes "there will probably be enough Democrat support for it," though he personally remained undecided as of this morning.

House Republicans, meanwhile, will meet behind closed doors today at 1 p.m. Many prominent members have already denounced the Senate bill, and as best as I can tell, Boehner has not yet thrown his own support behind the deal.

There are a few scenarios to keep in mind. The first is the possibility that the House may try to amend the Senate version, make it more right-wing to satisfy House Republicans, and then send it back to the upper chamber with an ultimatum: pass the House version or else. If this happens, the agreement will quickly unravel.

The second is the conundrum the Speaker faces. If the vast majority of his caucus opposes the Senate deal, does Boehner try to pass it anyway with a sliver of GOP votes and Democratic support? If he does, Boehner may put his career in jeopardy -- House leadership votes are 48 hours away -- and he knows it.

And finally, another delay in the vote itself is also possible. The House originally intended to vote yesterday, and then pushed it today. If the vote is postponed until Thursday, Boehner and GOP leaders may have an easier time of passing the bill -- a new Congress with a larger Democratic minority will have been sworn in, and this group of lawmakers may be more amenable to compromise than the current crew.

Of course, if the House does wait, the Senate will have to vote again on the bill it approved overnight -- and that vote would also be with its new members.

There was some relief on Capitol Hill last night, but this isn't over.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/01/16283617-fiscal-deal-sails-through-senate-awaits-house-action

While Americans were being entertained by the Rose Parade and football, a handful of reps debated over the federal employee pay freeze...then they went into recess.

And my cynacism for the GOP/TP House is again justified by the GOP/TP House caucus ~ ~ Sooz

House GOP skeptical of bipartisan fiscal deal
By Steve Benen - Tue Jan 1, 2013 3:55 PM EST

At a certain level, it may seem hard to believe the Republican-led House would kill a bipartisan fiscal compromise that passed the Senate with 89 votes, including 40 of the Senate's 46 GOP members. Indeed, why in the world would House Republicans want to be on the hook for destroying the agreement and causing a middle-class tax hike?

But it's important to remember that organized nihilists running part of the government are capable of unexpected actions.


Cantor's stated opposition caught many off guard. It's not that he's breaking publicly with the Speaker, exactly -- John Boehner has committed to bringing the bill to the floor, but hasn't publicly stated an opinion on its merits -- but the Majority Leader's position still carries some weight. When he balks, it stands to reason he's going to take a whole lot of votes with him.

A specific House GOP strategy has not yet taken shape, but Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said he'd be "shocked" if the House didn't try to amend the Biden/McConnell deal, make it more right-wing, and then sent it "back to the Senate."

Of course, if the House fails to pass the Senate version as-is, the entire package will unravel, the process will start all over again in the new Congress, and the economic consequences would start to kick in.

All of this, as a practical matter, opens the door to a series of possible outcomes.

Scenario #1: House Republicans are just blowing off some steam this afternoon, but they'll eventually realize they have limited options, bite the bullet, and pass the deal with some Democratic votes.

Scenario #2: The vast majority of House Republicans will balk, but the chamber won't want to be blamed for destroying everything, so a sliver of the caucus will join Democrats and grudgingly pass the package. This will raise questions anew about John Boehner's career, and the prospect of Cantor running for the Speaker's gavel soon after.

Scenario #3: House Republicans will amend the Senate deal, make it more Tea Party-friendly, and demand that the Senate approve their new version. This will necessarily force the entire process to collapse.

Scenario #4: House Republicans will pass two bills, the Senate's bipartisan agreement as-is, and a separate bill filled with spending cuts. The Senate would ignore the second bill, but it might make the House GOP feel better about itself.

Scenario #5: House Republicans will kill the Senate bill, there will be an enormous political freak out, and there will be hell to pay at the start of the new Congress.

Which one of these scenarios is likely to happen? Your guess is as good as mine.

Keep one other angle to this in mind: the House is taking up a bill it had nothing to do with. After House Republicans balked at every possible alternative, including their own Speaker's fallback plan, Boehner deliberately took his entire chamber out of the process, asking the Senate to do all of the work, and promising to bring their resolution to the House floor. The lower chamber knew all along that it would basically have to vote up or down on whatever compromise the Senate worked out.

And as of this afternoon, the outcome is far from clear.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/01/16286608-house-gop-skeptical-of-bipartisan-fiscal-deal

The House has been in recess(ion) since 2008.

the only thing that would keep the Senate measure from passing is a failure to vote.
Boehner has already said he would bring it to the floor.
i think it is history. this deal is going to get done, and Obama will sign it tomorrow.

It's a done deal.

Yes, Sid ~ amazingly ~ I'm waiting to see the numbers ~

Sooz

So much pointless drama by a bunch of bad actors.

All the pundits are throwing around a 4 trillion dollar debt increase due to the bill.
Increased revenue and extension of unemployment benefits add up to 4 trillion?
Please help me with that math.

Eight Corporate Subsidies in the Fiscal Cliff Bill, From Goldman Sachs to Disney to NASCAR


1) Help out NASCAR - Sec 312 extends the “seven year recovery period for motorsports entertainment complex property”, which is to say it allows anyone who builds a racetrack and associated facilities to get tax breaks on it. This one was projected to cost $43 million over two years.

2) A hundred million or so for Railroads - Sec. 306 provides tax credits to certain railroads for maintaining their tracks. It’s unclear why private businesses should be compensated for their costs of doing business. This is worth roughly $165 million a year.

3) Disney’s Gotta Eat - Sec. 317 is “Extension of special expensing rules for certain film and television productions”. It’s a relatively straightforward subsidy to Hollywood studios, and according to the Joint Tax Committee, was projected to cost $150m for 2010 and 2011.

4) Help a brother mining company out – Sec. 307 and Sec. 316 offer tax incentives for miners to buy safety equipment and train their employees on mine safety. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to bribe mining companies to not kill their workers.

5) Subsidies for Goldman Sachs Headquarters – Sec. 328 extends “tax exempt financing for York Liberty Zone,” which was a program to provide post-9/11 recovery funds. Rather than going to small businesses affected, however, this was, according to Bloomberg, “little more than a subsidy for fancy Manhattan apartments and office towers for Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp.” Michael Bloomberg himself actually thought the program was excessive, so that’s saying something. According to David Cay Johnston’s The Fine Print, Goldman got $1.6 billion in tax free financing for its new massive headquarters through Liberty Bonds.

6) $9B Off-shore financing loophole for banks – Sec. 322 is an “Extension of the Active Financing Exception to Subpart F.” Very few tax loopholes have a trade association, but this one does. This strangely worded provision basically allows American corporations such as banks and manufactures to engage in certain lending practices and not pay taxes on income earned from it. According to this Washington Post piece, supporters of the bill include GE, Caterpillar, and JP Morgan. Steve Elmendorf, super-lobbyist, has been paid $80,000 in 2012 alone to lobby on the “Active Financing Working Group.”


7) Tax credits for foreign subsidiaries – Sec. 323 is an extension of the “Look-through treatment of payments between related CFCs under foreign personal holding company income rules.” This gibberish sounding provision cost $1.5 billion from 2010 and 2011, and the US Chamber loves it. It’s a provision that allows US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad.

8) Bonus Depreciation, R&D Tax Credit – These are well-known corporate boondoggles. The research tax credit was projected to cost $8B for 2010 and 2011, and the depreciation provisions were projected to cost about $110B for those two years, with some of that made up in later years.


Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/ ... u5zdsfl.99

This is from late last night ~ it renews speculation about Boehner retaining the speakership which, I think, is the first order of business when the new Congress convenes TOMORROW ~ calling the Dems a "disciplined caucus" made me laugh, but gives me great hope ~ Sooz

House passes fiscal deal, sends agreement to White House
By Steve Benen - Tue Jan 1, 2013 11:25 PM EST

Seven hours ago, House Republicans were fired up and ready to kill the bipartisan fiscal agreement that the Senate passed easily last night. Tonight, however, the House passed the Senate deal without too much trouble, 257 to 167.

House Speaker John Boehner was, as expected, forced to ignore the arbitrary, so-called "Hastert Rule," and bring the bill to the floor despite the opposition of most of the majority caucus. By the time the gavel fell, however, it was far more than a sliver of House GOP members who bit the bullet and grudgingly supported the compromise -- 85 Republicans voted for the bill tonight, while 151 voted against it.

Of particular interest was the division among GOP leaders. Boehner and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan voted for the Senate compromise, while House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy voted against it.

The rumors of sharp fissures among Republican leaders are true, and Boehner and Cantor are obviously not on the same page. It's a dynamic that's well worth watching as the new Congress gets underway, and the House GOP leadership tries to govern with an even smaller caucus.

Regardless, while Boehner surely wished he enjoyed more support from his own members, Cantor does not end the evening looking especially strong -- he briefly led the insurgency against the fiscal agreement this afternoon, and ignored the wishes of his own Speaker, but the effort to derail the deal ended up failing badly.

President Obama, who will sign the completed agreement quite soon, is scheduled to speak from the White House briefing room any minute now.

But as the dust settles, it's worth considering how the day unfolded in the House. The GOP caucus gathered for a preliminary, midday meeting at which Republicans insisted on "amending" the bipartisan bill -- making it far more favorable to the right -- and then sending it back to the Senate with an ultimatum: pass the House version or else.

But by the time House Republicans gathered for a rare evening meeting, the push behind the effort had fizzled, and the earlier threats started to look like empty bluster. So, what happened? A few things, actually.

First, GOP members realized that amending the Senate package would necessarily unravel the entire process, and there would be no doubt in anyone's mind who would receive -- and deserve -- the blame for higher taxes and sweeping austerity measures that would do real harm to the economy: House Republicans.

Second, there was limited support for an amended bill, anyway. Remember, Boehner's "Plan B," which died an ignominious death just two weeks ago, set the higher marginal income tax threshold at a $1 million and included all kinds of right-wing goodies intended to secure Republican support. It failed miserably. The amended Senate bill would have set the threshold at $450,000 and it would have generated zero Democratic votes. It quickly became apparent that the proposal couldn't pass, and wasn't worth pursuing.

The clock only made matters worse -- GOP leaders, having already missed the New Year's Eve deadline, maintained they wanted to wrap this up well in advance of financial markets opening in the morning.

And that left the House with a choice: either pass or kill the deal. With the help of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her disciplined caucus, the chamber chose the former.

One other thought to keep in mind as members head to the cameras tonight: House Republicans had no say in shaping this deal, but that was by design. I saw Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) complain this afternoon that he thinks the Senate acted like a "dictatorship" that wants to rule over the House.

Let's not forget recent history -- which is to say, the history from last week. The White House worked with the Speaker and his office on a compromise, and Boehner abandoned the talks. A few days later, Boehner's caucus abandoned him, leaving a scenario in which the entire chamber was lost and directionless.

And it was at that point, the Speaker announced, "Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff." In other words, the House GOP leadership gave up and ceded power to the Senate and the White House.

House Republicans weren't really in a position to wait until Jan. 1 and then decide it had changed its mind about who deserved to have a hand in crafting a bipartisan agreement. The Senate didn't play the role of a "dictatorship"; it simply did the work the House was unable and unwilling to do.

And now, the process is over, and the bill heads to the White House for the president's signature. We'll have plenty more coverage in the morning.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/01/16291385-house-passes-fiscal-deal-sends-agreement-to-white-house?lite

I watched Obama's brief press comments following the vote the last night ~ he definitely was blunt about his "take no prisoners during debt ceiling negotiations" mindset ~ and I think that the reinvigorated Dems having his back will keep that mindset going ~ I also think he will make very good use of both his inaugural and State of the Union speeches ~ while I don't believe he's "broken" the GOP/TP, I do believe the tide has turned significantly in his favor ~

Sooz