The Republican tax regime of George W. Bush, vilified by Democrats as the source of everything wrong with the country since 2007 when Nancy Pelosi took over as Speaker of House, was made permanent last night, mostly by Democrats and liberal Republicans, and there's narry a voice on the right crowing about the victory. Instead they're all eating crow, and in public, complaining about how they couldn't support tax increases on the rich or about the lack of spending cuts.
To the first point, they don't call Republicans the party of the rich for nothing. They have opened their mouths wide today and removed all doubt. And when it comes to the spending side, Republicans' mistake all along has been to link spending decisions to a tax package. Without a fixed lodestar of revenue, debates about spending have no point of reference. But now, happily, they do, no thanks to them. It is sad that what finally gave permanence to the Bush tax rates was Democrat fear of booking another recession by sucking money out of people's wallets which normally would get spent, crashing GDP. Saving Obama's reputation and his second term demanded it, who now thinks he just won the Cadillac when all it is is a Pontiac. There's plenty of incompetence to go around.
The Washington Post here has the vote breakdown:
The House voted 257 to 167 to send the measure to Obama for his signature; the vote came less than 24 hours after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the legislation. ...
The bill drew 85 votes from Republicans and 172 from Democrats, meaning well more than half of its support came from the Democratic minority.
With 151 Republicans voting “no,” the GOP tally fell far short of a majority of the GOP caucus. That broke a long-standing preference by Boehner to advance only bills that could draw the support of a majority of his Republican members.
