The house voted late Monday night 257 to 167 in favor of the bill crafted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., and V.P. Joe Biden. The deal averted the country’s slip into the so- called fiscal cliff .
House Republicans voted 151 to 85 against it. This as speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, finds out Thursday if he will indeed hold the gavel for the 113 congress.
“The Republicans have a big problem here. Barack Obama and the Democrats fought the election on this issue and they won, and then they did what they said they were going to do,” Democratic Strategist Steve Elmendorf told Chris Jansing. “But the Republicans are all over the map,” he adds.
Republican strategist David Winston disagrees. He says in spite of the disagreements the speakers’ position is still strong.
“This was a policy dynamic, this was not a leadership issue,” says Winston who worked for Newt Gingrich’s campaign. “The tax cuts were what the Republicans wanted but, there wasn’t the deficit reduction that they really wanted”
There’s no doubt that there’s a family feud in the GOP. Conservatives are very upset with the deal . Newt Gingrich tweeted “The GOP has been engaged in a two month dance of defeat and surrender!”
“All the members who were frustrated by that (Fiscal deal) still thought getting those tax cuts pushed through and finalizing it was an important step, but just couldn’t overcome the lack of deficit reduction in the bill,” David Winston told Jansing.
But, if the fiscal cliff fight was tough, there’s at least one thing both David Winston and Steve Elmendorf agree on. The debt ceiling fight coming up in February is going to be even tougher.
“Wait for the debt ceiling debate, that’s going to be a very difficult debate,” says David Winston.
Aparna Zalani