After Midnight Deadline, Senate Approves Last-Ditch Cliff Deal

Senate Democrats — yielding to an eleventh-hour lobbying plea from Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — grudgingly voted in the early hours of Tuesday morning for a fiscal cliff deal most members dislike but concede will be in the country’s best interest with taxes set to increase for all Americans.

Biden traveled to the Capitol late Monday evening after negotiating with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on an agreement that would continue current tax rates for income less than $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for households as well as permanently extend several other tax provisions and delay by two months scheduled across-the-board automatic spending cuts.
The Senate approved the package 89-8, sending it to the House, where Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, will have to wrangle enough GOP votes to pair with House Democrats to send the bill to the president’s desk.
Despite their deep concerns about the deal, Senate Democrats passed the package with personal assurances from Biden that President Barack Obama will take a hard line against the GOP in future budget and debt limit negotiations, which are likely to begin again in earnest this month. It took hours between Biden departing the Capitol and the actual vote, as senators awaited scoring of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office.
Although an agreement was reached in principle before Dec. 31 ended, the Senate’s work extended into New Year’s Day.
“It’s a controversial package. But we knew that it was going to be a difficult challenge,” said Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill. “We have to pass it for the good of the country.”
But Durbin indicated that the plan’s failure to address the debt limit would set up “the next cliff” in early 2013.
Members exiting the evening meeting with Biden in the ornate Mansfield Room, just off the Senate floor, said the vice president promised uneasy senators that Obama would not allow Republicans to use future debt limit increases as a way to exact further spending cuts. The president offered cuts in exchange for a debt ceiling increase earlier in the fiscal cliff talks.

read more:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/cliff_deal_headed_for_senate_vote_soon...

What's in the Deal?

~The measure, which would raise tax rates for families making more than $450,000 and delay deep across-the-board spending cuts for two months

~ a year long extension of both unemployment benefits and business-friendly tax provisions

~tax cuts for families first enacted in the 2009 stimulus — an earned income tax credit, child tax credit and college tax credit — would be extended for five years.

~prevent rate cuts to doctors who treat Medicare patients, sources said. Dividends and capital gains for families who earn more than $450,000 would be taxed at 20 percent, up from the current 15 percent rate.

~cancels pay raises for members of Congress and would avert an expected hike in the price of milk by extending expiring dairy policy.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/senate-clears-fiscal-cliff-de...

 

By Meredith Shiner