After extensive interviews in the Speaker’s lobby just off the floor of the House, White House Dossier was able to ascertain why 85 House Republicans voted for Fiscal cliff legislation that raised taxes but did almost nothing to cut spending.
What follows, based on these interviews, are the top ten reasons why some Republicans supported the legislation:
1. Obama threatened to take away their chocolate pudding
2. Pelosi told Republicans they had to pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it.
3. Grover Norquist reduced supporters’ penalty from a primary challenge to a brief spanking.
4. Last minute calls from Michelle promising to cut federal spending by taking three vacations this year instead of four.
5. Measure includes coded language handing the election to Romney.
6. Democrats arranged to allow deceased members of Congress to vote, including moderate Republicans.
7. Chris Christie, who took Obama’s side in the battle, defeated Eric Cantor in a hot dog eating contest.
8. Biden threatened to put Republicans “back in chains” – and make each one listen to him for an hour.
9. The bill includes new tax on character assassination by Obama against political opponents, which may raise more money than expected.
10. Republicans finally decided, “Yeah, stick it the rich, they didn’t build that!”
*******
Have you done any reporting on this? Are there any reasons you’ve heard about? Or, in all seriousness, WHAT’S YOUR EXPLANATION? Because, I don’t have one.
{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
Because they’re in the $250,000 to $400,000 income range?
11. They were tired of talking about it and just decided to check Yay
12. Boehner’s tears got to them. Never underestimate the power of pity.
13. It was late at night and they were missing Red Eye.
14. They thought they were voting on new ‘snacks’ not new tax.
15. They know that no-one is paying attention.
NOT !
So we should have just gone over the cliff? What are you saying? There are a lot of consequences to across-the-board cuts. None of this is as simplistic as even Fox would have us have it. Obamacare is going to clobber the econ–which is only slated for 2% growth this yr anyhow.
Obama has already killed the economy. I think the cliff was the only way spending would have been cut at all.
11. Republicans are auditioning for a part in a revival of the Wizard of Oz. The parts auditioned for are the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man. No courage, no brain and no heart.
I nominate Mitch McConnell for the Cowardly Lion. He’s a natural for the part…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2itQkiQUOE
Republicans who voted for this were promised all the free Rum they could swill.
Welcome to the UniParty Kabuki Theater Duopoly. We no longer have two parties, just one big one that get to carve up our economy and keep it for themselves.
Nothing should have been passed without AT LEAST a 10% across the board cut in spending. For starters.
I really do not know what they were thinking.
Perhaps Pelosi had the heater turned off in the building, and they wanted to cowher back to the comforts of their beds? It was late after all.
What I do know is that this top ten list like all the others posted here, always makes me smile.
Thanks.
I envisioned the “fiscal cliff” as a government bankrupcy; the kind that forces the debtor to pare expenses, renegiotiate contracts, and present a sound fiscal plan for the future. Going over that cliff wouldn’t have meant the end of the USA. There would be no rioting in the streets, WallStreet would wait it out and our creditors would have to make some concessions.
The problem is that Congress can just demand more revenue from the taxpayers instead of facing reality and adjusting their spending ways.
If the Repubs had a sinister, secret plan that involved raising taxes on everybody so that MrO would get the blame, it wasn’t well thought out.
Why? who knows. Maybe they just wanted more revenue to spend, too.
There was no guarantee of a sound plan–Simpson Bowles-like. A lot of dismantling of govt programs on the fly–once gone, no mind changing, cannot be recreated. Everyone’s taxes would have skyrocketed right before more Obamacare outrages.
“Why? who knows. Maybe they just wanted more revenue to spend, too.”
That is my guess, srdem. The Republicans who voted for this monstrosity knew very well what they were doing. With the exception of a few stalwart Conservative Republicans, there is no difference between the two parties any longer. Our legislators no longer serve the will of the people; they serve the will of this collectivist government.
Obama, always the sly fox, had this whole fiscal cliff set up so that the Republicans would take the fall and be blamed for ruining the country’s economy. The problem was, the GOP had no spine, they should have called his bluff and let the thing die. No spending cuts either, that should have been their reason to box Obama into a corner!
With all the waste in government spending, a sweeping 10% cut across the board would have still let the country still run smoothly. Oh, I would have started with the 1.4 billion it costs to maintain the Obama family. :D
Don’t forget–the govt many disdain would have decided what would be cut. There’s no politics like AGENCY politics.
NO explanation.
They’d have to drop their current health coverage and sign up for Obamacare.
They were threatened with suspension of their email accounts begging for more money.
They all thought they were Rhett Butler: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give damn”.
Thinking it’s because they are spineless, morons.
US House = 435 Idiots, Retards & Criminals.
US Senate = 100 Idiots, Retards & Criminals.
Capitol Hill is nothing but a cesspool.
They voted for the ‘cliff’ bill when they discovered that Obama is not anything close to being like Lincoln in that: Lincoln was white; Lincoln was a Republican; and Lincoln never played golf during an American crisis
So many jars of urine with a virgin Mary waiting to be dunked need to be financed, so much poo waiting to be sculpted into Jesus … and the list of worthwhile expenditures of Americans hard earned cash is just endless. A paltry one dollar out of every twenty in world gross product just isn’t quite enough.
It takes a backbone in order to stand up.
11. Thirty pieces of silver.
12. They were promised starring roles in future Harvey Weinstein productions.
13. They get kick backs from Puerto Rican/Virgin Island rum sales and algae farms.
14. NASCAR race named in their honor.
15. Free electric scooter on retirement. Since these entrenched politicos tend to die in office, this is seen as a win win for the electric scooter industry.
They were promised photo ops with O letting them give him manhugs.
Pot is now legal in Congress.
A reason you want?
Reason: There is no effective difference between the Democratic and Republican “parties” other than what they want to control _first_. They are just two squads on the same Constitution-screwing team.*
None of them have any interest in limiting government, and thus their own power. They see no reason to cut spending, because they see “money” as an infinite resource: What they can’t tax, they can borrow. When that stops working… Well, we’ve already seen the idea of minting our own Zimbabwean trillion dollar coins. And that’s really nothing more than a simpler “quantitative expansion” in the Monopoly Money supply.
(* No, I’m not a Libertarian; they’ve made themselves into Chinese-made Walmart special knock-offs of the Republicans. Not even Rep Lite. The Socialists et al? Full-Flavor Democrats[tm].)
A reason you want?
Reason: There is no effective difference between the Democratic and Republican “parties” other than what they want to control _first_. They are just two squads on the same Constitution-screwing team.*
None of them have any interest in limiting government, and thus their own power. They see no reason to cut spending, because they see “money” as an infinite resource: What they can’t tax, they can borrow. When that stops working… Well, we’ve already seen the idea of minting our own Zimbabwean trillion dollar coins floated. And that’s really nothing more than a simpler “quantitative expansion” in the Monopoly Money supply.
(* No, I’m not a Libertarian; they’ve made themselves into Chinese-made Walmart special knock-offs of the Republicans. Not even Rep Lite. The Socialists et al? Full-Flavor Democrats[tm].)
1. They mistook Obama as Bill Cosby taking away their chocolate pudding!
Bill Cosby was bashed years ago by the NAACP by stating “Whitey didn’t put you in jail, robbing the 7-11 did”. Also, google Cosby’s Pound Cake speech.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100196479/barack-obamas-7-million-hawaii-vacation-is-an-insult-to-americas-struggling-middle-class/
Great article, but probably none of the LSM will read it or even care if they did.
Today’s headline (1/6) from online LA Times provides an answer: “The president’s dismissive attitude toward critics and his dangling of limited concessions offers little hope for a diplomatic breakthrough . . .” — oops, the times was referring to Assad of Syria.
Sigh–funny. Good old David Gregory interviewed himself on Meet the Impressed, begging Mitch McConnell to say Obama to say he would close down the govt and any other incendiary thing he could think of. McConnell said about six times that taxes were “settled,” that’s over, etc. I doubt Obama thinks that. It’s on once again! Shocker. Gingrich had sort of a point though, that the Republicans should engage the president on the continuing resolution or the sequester–not the debt ceiling. Gregory was not armed–darn, I miss that.
I MEANT to say Gregory tried to get McConnell to “admit” Obama had been sweetly reasonable, offered a ton of concessions that were cruelly rejected by dastardly Republicans, and …. the usual. Simpson (man, he is folksy to a big fault) and Bowles said nah, both sides had not done much to help the spending problem.
# 11 Promised a ride along on AF 1 when Dear Leader takes his next vacation, for a nominal fee of course.
Because the only discernable difference between the parties is the barely measureable difference in the amount of ink or number of pixels required to form the letters D and R usually positioned behind their names.
P.J. O’Rourke once said it best. If there were no stupid people, there would be no Democrat voters or Republican candidates.