On January 2, 2013, Lisa Mascaro and Kathleen Hennessey write in the Los Angeles Times that in their party’s first vote in two decades, House Speaker John Boehner and Representative Paul Ryan join a minority of Republicans to help pass the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
What it will not do is match the ambitious goals set by Obama and Boehner for a “grand bargain” that would put the government on a path to a balanced budget. Instead, the compromise sets up another deadline two months hence for Congress to once again deal with the government’s budget.
Several Republicans said afterward they feared that, if the bill failed and taxes went up on nearly everyone in the country, their party would take the blame.
Even so, the decision by Boehner to bring the bill to a vote without the support of a majority of his caucus — the usual standard — rankled many Republicans. The compromise, they complained, did virtually nothing to cut spending. And while it kept the low tax rates of the President George W. Bushera for most Americans, the tax hikes it did contain were anathema to lawmakers who had sworn to oppose any increase. Passage of the bill in the Senate marked the first time in two decades that any Republican in Congress had voted for an income tax increase.
Concern over the next debate fueled much of the Republican opposition to the current bill. Some Republicans balked at the economic stimulus provisions — primarily the low-income tax breaks, which were a priority for Obama and House Democrats. They also objected that the bill would raise far more in tax revenue than it would trim in federal spending, which they worried set a bad precedent for future budget negotiations with the president.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0102-fiscal-cliff-20130102,0,1215218.story
