Posted on 01/01/2013 4:19:14 PM PST by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON—House Republicans are gauging whether there is enough Republican support to add spending cuts to a Senate-approved fiscal-cliff agreement as leaders moved toward holding votes Tuesday night, a senior House GOP aide said.
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) on Tuesday presented Republicans with two options for overcoming an impasse on legislation to deal with the fiscal cliff.
The first option would be to add spending cuts to the Senate-passed bill, vote on that and send it back to the Senate, the aide said. The fallback position would be to bring the Senate-bill up as it exists, vote on it and seek to win approval for it, the aide said.
If there are enough GOP votes to pass the first approach, the House would amend the fiscal cliff bill and send it back to the Senate, the aide said. A second senior GOP leadership aide said that leaders were mulling adding $300 billion in spending cuts to the bill. Details of those cuts weren’t yet available.
One leadership aide said the additional spending cuts that are being considered had already passed the House in two separate votes this year—the most recent just two weeks ago during an earlier round of fiscal-cliff machinations.
The speaker and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) both cautioned lawmakers about the risks in sending the bill back to the Senate, the aide said. The leaders told the lawmakers there is no guarantee the Senate would take up an amended bill.
The Senate passed the bill in an 89-8 vote in the early hours of the new year. The Senate agreement would boost income-tax rates for the first time in 20 years, maintain unemployment benefits and delay spending cuts that were part of the fiscal cliff.
(Excerpt) Read more at stream.wsj.com ...
gee... 2 options:
1: Accept more tax hikes with ZERO cuts in spending, or
2: Fight for at least a little bit of cuts to our insane spending
I know this is a tough call for our spineless friends in Congress.
America is $16 trillion in debt, the economy is in the toilet, there are no good jobs to be had. Now, what was that about a “cliff”?
Looks like the K-Street Money Changers have given Bonehead his
marching orders.
This is a terrible bill.
The U.S.A is a dictatorship with the news media as the dictators.
The new media created this “fiscal cliff” bs. And now they have these congressmen on a holiday rush voting for this bs to avoid a non-existent media created cliff. All this under the direction of the media. I bet none of these congressmen even read the bill that is being voted on.
Stop looking for boogey men. This whole problem is the sole creation of the GOP. It started when Bush agreed to make his tax cuts temporary. Then it was made worse when Bohner made the shitty deal to increase the debt ceiling. The GOP have retreated time and time again. THAT’S why we’re all where we are.
You give far too much credit to the media.
I give up! I am sick of these spineless candy asses! I will never vote for a Republican again. I am seriously thinking of changing my party affiliation to Libertarian. At least they believe in the Constitution. Can’t believe the Repubs....I am so so sick of this! The sad truth is both parties are in cahoots. They know what is going to happen and we are used by them. They are both robbing us blind and we let them by re-electing the jackasses!
The mews media creates the false reality we live in.
For the last month everyone has been talking about this “fiscal cliff” bs. who put that in people’s minds? A group of idiots last night were in panic mode about the cliff. I asked them to tell me what it was or how the U.S.A was going over a cliff. no one could tell me what or how this was a cliff . why don’t you say how we are going over a cliff.
The bill the Senate sent to the House amends tax rates. Bills raising revenue have to originate in the HoR. If the Senate bill had a "H" number, then they emptied the contents of the bill and filled it with things the House had never approved. If the Senate refuses to consider the revisions, tuff.
Uh...Option #3
Recess the House and go home.
You’d think that Boehner would know by this point that any plan cooked up by Mitch McConnell is worthless.
No on anything. Put your trunks on, let’s go cliff diving... Obama Style.
Why would one of the Republicans’ two options be to ‘’seek to win approval for’’ the Senate’s bill? The Senate’s bill would both raise taxes and NOT cut spending — two things Republicans are supposed to consider anathema.
If the Republicans choose this as-Democratic-as-the-Democrats option, there’s no reason to have a Republican party. The charade would be over.
It’s absurd to worry that if the Republicans insist on voting for what they stand for — lower taxes and less spending — they might lose control of the House in 2014. But if they allow themselves to be bullied into voting for the Democrats’ bill, it would mean that they don’t have control of the House NOW.
We will not have a two-party system if the Republicans vote for what the Democrats want on the critical fiscal-cliff issue. If that happens, unless we start a Conservative party, the United States will be a one-party dictatorship.
Option 3: Walk out and make the Obama administration own this mess. Sure,the Republicans would be blamed by the media for awhile, but that is their fault for not taking over the narrative in the first place.
Later, people would hopefully see through Obama when he tries to lower the definition of “rich” again and it hits them.
The notion of a “cliff” has been sold by all parties, not just the media. Very few people have bothered to explain it any other way. The next leaders of our party had better figure out how to communicate clearly. The rest will take care of itself.
There’s another option. Either adjourn or pretend to be working on a bill until noon on Thursday, when the Senate bill dies.
Not much of a deal if you ask me. Boehner gave Obama permission to print up a $2.5 trillion slush fund of federal money with which to win the election. I still haven't figured out what he got in return. It certainly wasn't any spending decrease, because that simply has not happened.
Why do Conservatives continue to beat their heads against the wall? We are not going to able to persuade the majority of Americans to change their ways. Come hell or high water they are going to vote for spendocrats until hell freezes over. Anyone believing to the contrary needs to have their head examined. I firmly believe we should just join up with the program and borrow and spend until such time as our ignorant creditors turn off the money spigot. If we are lucky we might be dead by that time and we will have enjoyed the fruits of the labor of our ignorant creditors.
In any event, when they finally awake to their catastrophic mistake we should simply tell them (as did the Icelanders) we’re sorry but as you well know or should have known there is no money to pay our debts. You ignorant creditors are SOL. At that point, of course, the government programs will collapse as we will have been borrowing at that time almost every penny the government is spending. So it will be every man for himself and conservatives had better be prepared by having spent their money on hard assets, guns and groceries for the day of reckoning.
Perhaps after the collapse we can restructure our government in such a way as to reimpose the values of our forefathers with a few restraints on government that they did not think to impose.
Whoa! Before you senselessly start blaming Bush, you should understand why the tax cuts are "temporary".
At the time, the Republicans had 50 votes in the Senate, plus VP Dick Cheney to create a bare majority. It takes 60 votes to make tax cuts "permanent", because a Democrat filibuster could stop the measure in its tracks -- and Tom Daschle would've done so.
However, a "temporary" tax cut can be passed with a bare majority -- via the reconciliation process. However, such a tax cut expires in ten years. So that is the course the Bush administration chose to follow.
What would you have done under the circumstances? Insisted on a "permanent" tax cut...and gotten nothing? Or employed the reconciliation process...and gotten a tax cut for twelve years?
If we'd elected a Republican Senate and a Republican President in November, there wouldn't be a problem, would there? The tax cuts could've been easily extended for another ten years. But we didn't.
You can blame Bush for a lot of things. But "settling for a temporary tax cut" isn't one of them.
Whoa! Before you senselessly start blaming Bush, you should understand why the tax cuts are "temporary".
At the time, the Republicans had 50 votes in the Senate, plus VP Dick Cheney to create a bare majority. It takes 60 votes to make tax cuts "permanent", because a Democrat filibuster could stop the measure in its tracks -- and Tom Daschle would've done so.
However, a "temporary" tax cut can be passed with a bare majority -- via the reconciliation process. However, such a tax cut expires in ten years. So that is the course the Bush administration chose to follow.
What would you have done under the circumstances? Insisted on a "permanent" tax cut...and gotten nothing? Or employed the reconciliation process...and gotten a tax cut for twelve years?
If we'd elected a Republican Senate and a Republican President in November, there wouldn't be a problem, would there? The tax cuts could've been easily extended for another ten years. But we didn't.
You can blame Bush for a lot of things. But "settling for a temporary tax cut" isn't one of them.
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