Fiscal Cliff Deal Limps Across Finish Line in House

Roll Call ^ | 1/1/2013 | Daniel Newhauser

[GVnana]

The Congress that convened two years ago under the war cries of the tea party is slowly coming to an end with a Champagne-less whimper on New Year’s Day 2013.

The House voted late Tuesday evening, in a rare holiday session, to pass a fiscal cliff bill brokered without the involvement of the GOP majority and with far less than half of their votes.

The bill (HR 8) was amended by the Senate in the early morning hours on an 89-8 vote, carrying language crafted over the holiday weekend by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The 257-167 roll call in the humbled House concluded close to 11 p.m., with 172 Democratic votes and only 85 Republicans, fewer of their own conference than GOP leaders hoped for perhaps, but more than enough to clear the necessary majority to send the legislation to President Barack Obama’s desk.

“Am I having a nightmare, or what?” Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio could be heard saying on the House floor, perhaps in jest. Boehner voted for the measure. Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California and Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam of Illinois all voted against it. Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., who has largely remained quiet during the debate over the last few weeks, voted for the legislation.

[Lancey Howard]

Pelosi did a very good job for the Dem side for 4 years, she's seems a way much better fighter than Bohner.

I'm old enough to remember how Democrat House Speaker Tip O'Neil basically announced that he was going to ignore Reagan and do whatever he wanted. And that's essentially what he did. Newt Gingrich has said recently that the Republicans should take a lesson from the way Tip O'Neil ran the House in his day.

I mostly agree with that suggestion, but caution that O'Neill was a Democrat and therefore had a fawning news media to carry his water. At that time the Democrats had a monopoly on the selection, dissemination, and spin of the daily news, Any Republican Speaker, then or today, most definitely would not have any support from the Democrat "mainstream" newsrooms. Quite the opposite.