Reuters
The House of Representatives on Wednesday began considering a Republican measure to extend the U.S. debt limit for nearly four months but many Democrats vowed to oppose the measure, calling it a gimmick that sets up a new “fiscal cliff.”
A test vote to proceed with debate on the measure showed a nearly strict partisan split, with 234 votes in favor and 190 against. Just six Democrats supported it.
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AP
Past its own New Year’s deadline, a weary Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid a national “fiscal cliff” of middle class tax increases and spending cuts late Tuesday night in the culmination of a struggle that strained America’s divided government to the limit.
The bill’s passage on a 257-167 vote in the House sealed a hard-won political triumph for the president less than two months after he secured re-election while calling for higher taxes on the wealthy.
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AP
Maneuvered into a political corner, House Republicans abandoned demands for changes in emergency legislation to prevent widespread tax increases and painful across-the-board spending cuts and cleared the way for a final, climactic New Year’s night vote.
The decision capped a day of intense political calculations for conservatives who control the House. They had to weigh their desire to cut spending against the fear that the Senate would refuse to consider any changes they made in the “fiscal cliff” bill, sending it into limbo and saddling Republicans with the blame for a whopping middle class tax increase.
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AP
Squarely in the spotlight, House Republicans prepared to meet Tuesday to decide their next move after the Senate overwhelmingly approved compromise legislation negating a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies.
In a New Year’s Day drama that climaxed in the middle of the night, the Senate endorsed the legislation by 89-8 early Tuesday. That vote came hours after Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sealed a deal.
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AP
The House will miss the midnight Monday deadline lawmakers set for voting to avoid the “fiscal cliff.”
House Republicans notified lawmakers that the chamber will vote Monday evening on other bills. They say that will be their only votes of the day.
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AP
Pressing an election-year point, Republicans pushed yet another bill through the House on Wednesday to repeal the nation’s two-year-old health care law, a maneuver that forced Democrats to choose between President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement and a public that is persistently skeptical of its value.
The vote was 244-185, with five Democratic defectors siding with Republicans.
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AP
House Republicans generally avoided talk of replacement measures on Tuesday as they mobilized for an election-season vote to repeal the health care law that stands as President Barack Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment.
Instead, they lambasted the 2-year-old law as a threat to the nation’s economic recovery and predicted some Democrats would join them in repudiating it.
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