What a volatile day it has been on Capitol Hill. At 2 am, the Senate passed the compromise, bipartisan fiscal cliff bill by 89 to 8. Then it went to the House. They tried to amend it to include some spending cuts, but that didn't gather the necessary Republican support after the Senate sent word that they would not reconsider any changes. The House to vote, yes or no, on the bill as it is. For a while it looked like they might not pass it.
Then there was apparently a major reversal in their thinking, and the mantra became: "We will live to fight another day."
They realized that voting it down would leave the House Republicans taking the blame for our going over the cliff, and the American people clearly didn't want that. Not did the financial world. So they passed the bill, with the intent to insist that raising taxes has now been dealt with and can't be used as a negotiating issue when they come back in March to deal with spending cuts, the deficit, and the debt ceiling.
The final vote was 257 t0 167. The yea votes included 172 Democrats and 85 Republicans, making it a solid bipartisan vote, with room to spare.
Ralph
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