I read the Senate Bill and it's not a huge victory... a good one but not huge.
$400,000 individual /$450,000 joint seems a little high for me... I think $300,000 would have been it. But at least the GOP can't whine about small businesses any more !
Another Take

Assuming (big you know what) the House doesn't make drastic changes, what's everyone's feelings ?
well besides !!

On closer analysis (at layman's pay grade, mind you), I don't know that $250K vs. $400/$450K is such a big gap. I'd be willing to bet that while Obama campaigned on the former, he expected a Republican counter offer of a $1 million (or higher) threshold. So considering that he only came up $150/$200K while Repugnicans had to come down $550/$600K — and they actually swallowed a tax increase of any description — Dems got the better tax deal by a long shot. And the chained CPI for SS is not in the mix either (at least for now).

My biggest disappointment is that the debt ceiling is not covered in this bill, which means another potentially dangerous and internationally embarrassing pissing contest in a couple of months. And there are still all those spending cuts that will have to be revisited soon.

That said, given Boneher's demonstrated lack of leadership, the House could stakeout a big claim on Assclownville and twist the Senate bill into a grotesque joke, or stomp the life out of it altogether. Blech.

You're right about the difference may not be as big $ wise, but my concern was the # of households affected drops hugely every notch you go up... so those > $1 million you're talking a few 100,000.... my concern was the revenue intake because a very few (like <<1%) will be affected.

They need to come up with a new term for Bonehead.... Assclown, jackass, etc. are all too kind and grossly underestimate his putridness !!

Can you help us out Steve !!

Robert Reich thinks the Dems could have done better.....

Reich

What bothers me the most about all this is that no one--besides Krugman now and then--took the opportunity to educate the people about what was going on. A lot of people, maybe most people, still think that the "cliff" was all about the debt. I think people here know better since the "cliff" was a danger because it would have attacked the deficit very directly, and so probably caused another deprecession. It's really why the republicans have won yet once again, AFAIC: they've made the idea of reducing the deficit the single issue that people focus on, and at this point in the economic history of the country, attacking the deficit = reducing the size of government in a pretty destructive way. Remember that reducing the size of government is the rep's # 1 priority now that they can't work on making Obama a one-term president any more. No one (besides Krugman now and then) has made the case that in a recession the size of a deficit by definition has to go up, and that having that happen is the only way to prevent a depression. No one (besides Krugman now and then) has pointed out that the real damage to the deficit was done under Bush, whose deficits ran up close to a trillion a year despite the fact that there was no recession under way--and of course back then, as Cheney used to say, deficits didn't matter.

So sure, the temporary fix is not as terrible as it could have been. But the republicans have won the war.

A nice summary and recap ...

Seems to be enough to hate for both sides that it's probably a good compromise -- it'll be interesting to see if Boehner can get this passed through the House as-is or wether the Republican House fringe will neuter it into a poison pill (if not just kill it altogether) ...

I'm doubtful Mr. Boner can even get this bill passed.

Once his committees add ammendments to repeal of the Affordable Care Act, anti-abortion legislation and to make a Grover Norquist Day a national holiday….

The Drudge/Breitbart world doesn't much like the 41:1 tax to spending cut ratio
link, They see McConnell & Boehner as an epic fail.


Remember, it wasn't long ago during the GOP primary debate when every candidate opposed a $10 cut for every $1 tax.

Bernie Sanders supports the Senate's bill.


…. The Donald, not so much.




Eric Cantor looks like he'll rally enough support to defeat Boehner and kill the bill. Then the likely outcome is that a new bill will be drafted by the 113th Congress and bring the limit back to $200K/$250K. Republicans will also oust Boehner and make Cantor the new Speaker.

Oh, the misery.



On the wildly optimistic side of things, did Obama's jedi 3-dimensional chess playing negotiation strategy just stike a direct hit to the GOP Deathstar and fuel their fatal internal implosion ?

F*cking Cantor will not support the bill. Now comes the neutering in the Repugnican House. We won't be climbing back up the hill any time soon. They don't care what Obama ran and won on. They have no interest in listening to voters. They only want to suck on the toes of Norquist, the Koch Bros., Sheldon Adelson, the NRA, and the extreme white wing.