House Approves Senate's Fiscal Cliff Deal

House Approves Senate's Fiscal Cliff Deal

The House of Representatives voted Tuesday night to approve a Senate bill to avert a feared fiscal cliff.

The measure that sought to maintain tax cuts for most Americans but increase rates on the wealthy passed the Democratic-led Senate overwhelmingly early in the day.

There was discussion about amending the Senate bill by adding spending cuts, but in the end, House lawmakers voted on the bill as written -- a so-called up or down vote.

The majority of the House of Representatives approves the Senate's fiscal cliff deal without any changes to the proposal.

Do you think that this is only a temporary resolution and we will still run into problems in the near future such as the debt ceiling, sequester, and balancing our budget?

reply to post by johngalt722


Are you asking if passing this fixed our deficit or debt problems?

If that is what you are asking, the answer is HELL NO! We will still be running trillion dollar deficits.

This has been the final straw for me, I am now certain congress is going to do absolutely nothing and let the markets obliterate our economy.

Any one that voted yes on this s*** deserves to be tarred and feathered. They are willingly destroying this country, and their is no excuse.

This bill is just smoke and mirrors that will give Obama something to tell the American people that he accomplished. I think he will come out and say how Republicans and Democrats were able to come together to avoid the fiscal cliff. I'm pretty sure Boehner was a huge part of getting this passed more than anything.

The fact still remains that the US has hit their debt ceiling and this bill will cost money. Debt Ceiling Source

Pushing it off down the road does not help.

In my mind, there was never any doubt that congress would "fix" this "crisis".

Every year it is the same; they hype some issue and then cut a deal at the last second. I think it is just to make themselves look like they are doing something. Get all the attention on them then celebrate the synthethic bipartisanship that led to the deal to get the average voter to go back to sleep, satisfied that their congressperson is looking out for them.

And in case it wasn't clear... I don't think this fixes anything.

PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND!

When does the credit card get cut up? When do they stop increasing the limit? How can they pass ANYTHING without a balanced budget?

Please help me understand.

I haven't reach much about this but it sounds like a relatively good proposal and not something everyone should be getting mad about... I mean it maintains tax cuts for nearly everyone except the super rich. I don't have too much of a problem with that, the super rich have a little bit extra to spare and they get a lot of their wealth by robbing the rest of us anyway. I don't fundamentally agree with the premise of wealth redistribution if people are earning their wealth from hard work, but in a world where the rich are forcing the rest of us into poverty by using us as cheap disposable tools I think they deserve to have a bit taken from them if it means stabilization of the economy.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


I agree with your basic premise that there must be give or take on a bill when there are multiple parties who have different agenda involved. No one is ever going to be happy. However, it is the timing and lack of content that gets to me. Why wait until the last second? You miss a deadline at a job, you can get fired. There are no repercussions for these politics.

The bill itself is the bare minimum just to scrape by and tell the people they've accomplished something. Naive as they all are, the people will rejoice that we didn't go over the metaphorical cliff. The real issues are still out there and have yet to be addressed.

It just confirms the economy is being further destroyed by our one-party Republicrat system.

This guarantees the dollar will continue to be devalued, the economy will continue to falter, and the deficit will continue to grow exponentially.

And when it does nobody will take responsibility. They will point to the fact that all agreed, and both sides will blame the other as usual.

Well, I guess that's that then, eh? One more swift KICK and the can has gone sailing on down the road. I can't help think this hole is about played out though. It won't work again, IMO. The math just isn't there for it anymore.

....of course no one is certain what happens now, either. This didn't address even all they had to deal with. It sure did nothing for the elements of the 'cliff' that had nothing to do with the whammy they'd written in before and all this was meant to fix. I think I'll flip on my display of foreign markets and watch the New York market real close in the morning. Time shall tell the tale.

reply to post by johngalt722


Ok so it seems everyone is angry because this does nothing to cut spending and balance the budget. Of course it doesn't. Who really expects the Government to cut down on spending. They are spending addicts without a cure. The only thing they know how to do is prolong this broken system. In terms of keeping the ball rolling this proposal isn't too bad and will do more good then letting the tax cuts expire. Of course the best way to deal with the problem is to reduce spending and not tax anyone anything extra, but that's a plan which is simply not on the table for these people. That's the harsh reality of it, and they wont learn until they finally hit the end of the road.

We're on borrowed time, the future's energies burned now.

This has been going on for years.

It means the process continues to speed up.

Either there's a ton of innovation coming out of the US which leads to new sectors, and millions of new jobs, else we continue to decline.

So yea, this seems to give time, but really it's taking it away.

Bad play.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN
PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND!

When does the credit card get cut up? When do they stop increasing the limit? How can they pass ANYTHING without a balanced budget?

Please help me understand.

They can keep spending as long as the markets allow it, and not a second longer. As soon as the interest rates start rising there is literally almost nothing they can do to stop it. These fools think printing Monopoly money makes it ok, but it does not.

The only reason the rates have not skyrocketed is the US is far from the only country with massive debt problems. However our problem is growing the fastest of anyone's.

As soon as Europe, Japan or some major bank collapses the game will be over.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


I agree that reducing spending is a key way to reduce our deficit and get the country on the right track. However, the people are so dependent on the amount of spending that our government does. People would not know how to function otherwise.

America has some one the lowest tax rates (source), highest military spending (source), and have accumulated the most debt (source).

The system is just not sustainable, yet people continue to be SO dependent on our government. A collapse is inevitable.

I think the deal is a pretty good one.

May I remind you that George Bush ran up a 5 trillion dollar deficit, mostly for tax cuts for the wealthiest, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an unfunded Medicare Part D program. Didn't hear a peep from conservatives.

Obama has run up a mere 1 trillion dollar deficit, mostly from the stimulus, which has worked moderately well. All of a sudden we just have to cut the hell out of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- you know, the programs the middle class and the poor depend on. Certainly, we can't possibly ask the wealthiest among us to pay a penny more in taxes, even though they have a tax rate of 14% while the middle class already has a tax rate of over 25%.

The right just wants an excuse to screw the majority of the American people. You know, Ayn Rand, the survival of the fittest, and all that. Let them eat cake.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN
PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND!

When does the credit card get cut up? When do they stop increasing the limit? How can they pass ANYTHING without a balanced budget?

Please help me understand.

makes you wonder doesn't it....

i think all the threads on our economy have become common sense around here, since we all know it's a mess with no end in sight. so my question these days is like yours, why?

why doesn't our elected 535 seem to get anything useful done, are they ignorant, hardly, are they stupid, not quite, are they ruthless, greedy, non caring people, i think so, so why?

something big this way comes and i have a feeling they know about it. i have no idea what nor whether it's a conspiracy or not but i think they know that they won't have to worry about it soon and that Sir scares me a bit.