House Voting on Bills to Avoid the Fiscal Cliff;
Spending Bill Passes 215-209;
Still Whipping Votes for Plan B;
8:05pm - Plan B Vote Cancelled

So we had two things to get done this evening related to the fiscal cliff. The House GOP just barely managed to get the Spending Reduction Act through in the face of uniform Democrat opposition, 215-209. Also, 21 Republicans voted with the Democrats.

These defectors insist that their conservative principles require that they vote against a spending bill with $242 billion in spending cuts over and above the sequester. I'm sure the White House thanks them for their support. The defectors also voted against cuts to the Obamacare slush fund, the failed HAMP mortgage reform effort, food stamps reforms, and tax credit reforms.

A vote on the second bill, what we've been calling 'Plan B' is to occur sometime soon, but it seems like Speaker Boehner isn't sure he's got the votes. Plan B prevents tax hikes for 99.81% of taxpayers, has permanent death tax relief, a permanent AMT fix, and permanent reforms to the marriage penalty.

Again, a group of Truuuuue Cons say they'd rather taxes go up for everyone than vote for this bill.

Update 8:00pm While we're waiting on the House GOP members to pull their heads out of their hindquarters, let's flashback to almost the same time last year, when I wrote a post entitled "House Republicans' Christmas Present to Obama."

If you'll recall, the Senate had passed a two-month payroll tax holiday extension, but when it came time to pass it in the House, the Truuuue Cons decided they wanted a full year extension. And if they weren't going to get their full year payroll tax holiday then they'd settle for no payroll tax holiday at all. It was a matter of "principle," you see?

They lasted two days before the enormity of their stupidity caused them to reevaluate their "principles" and vote for the bill. During that time, however, the Democrats got to demagogue the stuffing out of Republicans for causing a tax hike on millions of Americans. Here's part of what I wrote (but go back and read it all):

Honestly, I'm still waiting to hear what the House GOP thinks it's doing; how their version of the one-year extension is so necessary that they will forgo a two-month extension (which was going to become a full-year extension in February anyway) with a pipeline concession and instead settle for nothing at all. Because that's what they're going to get. Obama and the Democrats are going to laugh their way into the new year while the House GOP insists that it's standing on principle.

Same Shit, Different Day, as the old saying goes. They're doing it again.

The GOP leadership team is still whipping votes to get the defectors back in line.

Update 8:05pm Okay, Speaker Boehner called it off. There won't be a Plan B vote tonight, "The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass."

Shame. I certainly hope they circle back to this.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 07:34 PM

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