Republicans Angry About Tax Hike, Krugman on the Fiscal Deal, and More

Posted on Jan 1, 2013

Boiling Point: House Republicans were less than thrilled about the fiscal cliff deal that the Senate overwhelmingly voted in favor of early Tuesday morning. The legislation includes a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans and temporarily suspends automatic spending cuts that would have taken effect Jan. 1. Many Republicans objected to the plan, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who reportedly told colleagues in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that he could not support the deal as it was. (Read more) 

UPDATE: The House approved the fiscal cliff deal by a 257-167 vote Tuesday night. The vote fell mainly along partisan lines, with most of the Democrats (172) voting yes and a majority of Republicans (151) voting no. Among those in favor of the plan: House Speaker John Boehner. (Read more)

Krugman’s Perspective: Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says there’s both good and bad news for progressives about the Senate’s fiscal deal. The good: The deal doesn’t include cuts to entitlement program benefits. The bad: It doesn’t make up for lost revenue from the Bush-era tax cuts. However, Krugman also says the fight over deficit reduction left a “bad taste” in the mouths of many progressives. He explains: “It has less to do with where Obama ended up than with how he got there. He kept drawing lines in the sand, then erasing them and retreating to a new position. And his evident desire to have a deal before hitting the essentially innocuous fiscal cliff bodes very badly for the confrontation looming in a few weeks over the debt ceiling.” (Read more)

This Day in History: President Obama issued a proclamation Tuesday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Signed by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation—among the most well-known presidential proclamations—freed slaves in the South. “As the weariness of an old year gave way to the promise of a new one, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation—courageously declaring that on Jan. 1, 1863, ‘all persons held as slaves’ in rebellious areas ‘shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free,’ ” Obama wrote. (Read more)

Joint Venture: Nearly a month after marijuana was legalized in Colorado, recreational pot clubs are opening up in parts of the state. The clubs, however, are private and you have to sign up and pay a fee to join. Also, they don’t sell marijuana, so it’s BYOP. “It’s just a place for adults to exercise their constitutional rights together,” said Robert Corry, who serves as the attorney for one group called Club 64, named for the number of the state’s constitutional amendment. (Read more)

Video of the Day: House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who is among the Republicans unhappy with the fiscal cliff deal that was passed in the Senate, suggested to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that members of the Senate may have been partying a little too hard when they voted to support the compromise legislation. Issa later clarified that he was joking when Blitzer pressed him on the comment and asked whether he thought Republicans in the Senate were a little inebriated when they voted. Perhaps Issa was just presenting GOP talking points as outgoing Rep. Steve LaTourette also jokingly said senators “must have been drunk” when they approved the plan.

—Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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