Here is some recent history, via Wikipedia:
The majority of the majority is a governing principle (not a legal procedure) used by Republican Speakers of the House of Representatives since the mid-1990s to effectively limit the power of the minority party to bring bills up for a vote on the floor of the house.[1] Under the majority of the majority doctrine the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives will not allow a vote on a bill to take place unless the majority of the majority party supports the bill.[2] This is sometimes referred to as the “Hastert Rule”,[3] as its introduction is widely credited to former Speaker Dennis Hastert (1999-2007); however, Newt Gingrich, who directly preceded Hastert as Speaker (1995-1999), followed the same rule.[4] Hastert was vocal in his support of the rule stating that his job was “to please the majority of the majority.”[5]
Within the next hour, we may see Speaker John Boehner violate the Hastert Rule for the first time. In a parliamentary system, this would never happen. What would happen instead is that the parliament would express “no confidence” in their prime minister and a new coalition would elect a new prime minister. We don’t have a parliamentary system, but our system has been behaving like one since the Republican Revolution of 1994. Getting Boehner to behave like a Speaker of the House rather than merely the leader of its largest faction is a major accomplishment. It may cost him his gavel, but more likely it will save it. House members will need to be slowly house-trained to give up some of their delusions and bad habits if this country is going to be governable over the next years. The reason is simple: the majority of the House Republicans are stark-raving mad.
“The reason is simple: the majority of the House Republicans are stark-raving mad.”
I’d say it’s more accurate that the majority of GOP primary voters are outright loons.
Barking mad, the lot of them.
Yes, and they are going to be PISSED!!!! ;0)
I am really disappointed right now watching C-Span.
I was so looking forward to seeing Allen West spin his head and projectile vomit while making his remarks on this bill.
As I said in the previous thread, this is big, and Obama really has accomplished something important if it goes down this way, for which I give him due credit. Once this precedent is set, the Dems are in a considerably better position in 2 months than it appeared to me they’d be, if they play their cards well.
You’ve caved as quickly as the House Republicans.
Nothing, of course, will be learned.
I’ve been completely consistent in saying that breaking the grip of the Hastert rule is the crucial thing for the governability of the country over the next 2, or likely more, years. I will plead guilty to being very surprised indeed that it happened this way and so soon. But I’ve rarely been happier to be wrong.
Who knows if Little Luke Russert has his info right, but he’s now reporing that Cantor will vote for the Senate bill. Eric trashed the bill publicly a few hours ago- WTF?
The only explanation by Little Luke that made sense was that Wall Street leaders read Cantor the riot act. The other explanation, that they couldn’t put together a set of amendments which would get 218 votes, is a little less persuasive as an explanation. Of course, maybe the failure to amend successfully is what got Wall Street on the phone.
Good to know who’s running the show, huh?
I’m amazed Cantor did not have a package of spending cuts all prepared to attach to any bill. They have had months to put together a list of things they all agree upon. What a clown show.
And, right on time, Litle Luke was wrong- Cantor voted no. Feel like reveailing the source who burned you, Luke?
Just thinking:
The largest percentage of Americans have an annual household income under $25,000. (That’s 28.22% of us, folks!)
84% of American households are below $100,000/yr.
The median American household is $45,000/yr.
So tell me why middleclass reaches up to $450,000/yr?
For the same reason that those with income under $28,000 describe themselves as middle class. Getting 90% of Americans to identify as middle class has been one of the best political and corporate marketing coups.
Cantor eats boogers.
But only from his right nostril.
Hastert was my Congressman and he was a good one. He was responsible for a lot of transportation upgrades we needed as our county became the fastest growing in the nation.
But he was also arguably the worst Speaker of the House in the nation’s history, the Hastert Rule being one of the main reasons (there were others as well, including his affectiion for Tom DeLay). As Booman noted, the Hastert Rule made him the Speaker of the Republican caucus, not of the House of Representatives. It was a stupid and destructive policy that led to much of the political turmoil we now see the country in.
I would agree he was a good Congressman and for those that I’ve talked to that knew before he went to Congress, he was a pretty good guy. Yet, once he became Speaker he lost his damn mind. He became the crazy of the crazy. I was glad to see him leave.
.
P-uhlease Booman, calling the party of NO mad?
Boehner looks exhausted and he’s lost his orange! Cantor’s forelock is even out of place. Ryan chirped ‘no’ for a bit but been awfully quiet this evening.
Nobody gives a damn about breaking the Hastert Rule. You are just looking for things to sugar coat this horrible deal. Earlier you said the deal would strike a blow against the Norquist pledge. Well, guess what? He’s okay with the Biden-McConnell deal.
Instead of unrealistic goals like:
How about we light a fire under Obama’s ass for his miserable negotiations. Especially regarding the estate tax.
The estate tax, as put forth by Bush, lasted until 2010 and had a lowest rate of 45% and a highest exemption of $3.5 million.
Obama, when he extended the Bush tax cuts in late 2010, lowered the estate tax to 35% and raised the threshold to $5 million. Obama owns that. Bush had nothing to do with it.
And now we are treated to bullshit from the White House like this official statement: (emp add)
Yeah, it raises the rate, but not from the Bush tax law. It raises it from Obama’s own low number (and keeps the exemption at his high number). Talk about negotiating with yourself (or giving away the store).
The estate tax was only one part of the deal but I think it sheds light on how Obama operates. Who in the White House said, “Let’s start with the schedule that we ourselves got enacted in 2010, and not start from the Bush schedule”?
A pure extension of the Bush estate tax law would have been better than this.
The estate tax brings in serious money and can act as a modest brake on income inequality. Now it’s mostly gone as an effective revenue source. That’s one reason Morquist is okay with the overall deal, and why we shouldn’t be.
Somehow you missed that it went down to zero in 2010. Obama restored the estate tax to 35% two years ago. To lay it at his feet is to assume there was no one negotiating on the other side.
Look, I would have preferred a lower threshold and higher estate tax rate too. But that’s the nature of compromise. No one gets everything. 40% does not seem unreasonable as an estate tax. The real issue is how effectively wealthy folks can shelter their money from estate taxation. As always, the devil is in the detail.
I know it went down to zero, but that’s because there wasn’t any estate tax. The broad contours of the Bush estate tax law was 45% (or more) and $2 to $3 million exemption. That was the meaningful baseline. Yet Obama ignored it and worked from his own low number (that’s what the White House statement reads).
In negotiations there are lots of elements in play and it’s hard to find hard proof of ineptness. But with the estate tax, I think we have as provable a case of (a) poor negotiation, and (b) mendacity by the White House. That’s why I’m so strong on this issue.
Not sure what you’re saying; if the estate tax went to zero, i.e. was phased out {?], there was no tax? isn’t that the definition?
If Obama announced an estate tax of 10% and an exclusion of $20 million, you’d accept that as a hike from the Bush era? I think most of use would dismiss 2010 as an aberration.
But let’s play it your way. Even including a zero for 2010, the average is 43%.
So the argument stands: Obama did not raise the estate tax rate from the Bush schedule. He reduced it.
And he definitely substantially increased the exclusion to his own $5 million. Jennifer Rubin is cheering this.
You act like the President did this all by himself. The Republicans played a big part of this and I’m sure the estate tax was a big part of their demands and probably some rural Democrats as well.
Nothing happens in a vacuum and the President doesn’t dictate terms of the deal. He had leverage in this fight but his leverage wasn’t infinite and it wasn’t ever going to get us everything we wanted just more of what we wanted compared to what Republicans wanted.
That’s bull. The Tea Partiers are pissed! Taxes didn’t go up as much as Democrats might have preferred but they got none of the spending cuts Republicans wanted.
I’m sorry, what you write makes no sense at all. The estate tax was repealed as part of the Bush tax cuts (it was gradually reduced to zero). You are comparing Obama’s estate tax level with Clinton era estate taxes, I guess.
You’re wrong. By breaking the Hastert Rule, we just split the enemy camp into two factions, on the issue that defines them — no new taxes. That’s huge.
Now to drive the wedge in further on the upcoming budget fight over defense and “nondiscretionary spending” cuts. When the defense contractors get their noses forced out of the trough, their squealing will be loud enough to make repug ears bleed. They’ll do anything to soften the blow. It should be very entertaining.
If the Hastert rule gets broken it also has the possibility of transforming the GOP from a reflexive, unthinking party ruled by myopic anti government principles into a party that might actually have an interest in, and respect talent for, governing.
The country needs two fully functioning parties.
I’m not sure why breaking it on this one occasion would necessarily have a moderating effect on Republicans. I can see where having a bunch of them vote for higher taxes would make a difference. It essentially places a big circular firing squad right in the center of the Republican party — those who supported and those who opposed. As Booman has said, those who supported will have to defend (and defend and defend) this vote.
I’d like to see as many Republicans as possible forced to vote in favor of this bill. I don’t want it to pass with predominantly Democratic support.
It may not have a moderating effect, but the GOP will not moderate without something like this.
Orange Julius:
IT PASSED.
I have to say that I am not happy with this deal. I am glad to see the Hastert Rule potentially going down in flames, and I want to see the GOP broken. And it should go without saying that the unemployment extension is a good thing.
But I’m not down with that $400,000 “middle class” shit. And I’m not down with that estate tax shit. And $600 billion in revenue? that’s it? And another two months for the debt ceiling fight?
ugh. I dunno Booman, you have been right about some stuff, but I am not liking this deal one little bit. I would kinda prefer going over.
Well, I’m mostly opposed because they were made permanent. Continuous tax cuts without sticky liberal programs increases inequality. However, given that the president and most Democrats do want to make them permanent — buying into supply-side nonsense — I’m not going to oppose it on that ground. $400k, $250k…that’s a non-issue as far as I’m concerned.
For the record, I don’t think we need revenue as things stand now. Our structural deficit is tolerable, we just need better economic conditions. However, more revenue will be needed for an expanding safety net, which I want to do and is really the only answer I can see for alleviating poverty and inequality (and because VSP insist we need more revenue for the status quo, though they’re wrong imo).
The main point of contention is the debt ceiling. If the deal got that, I’d have voted for it. They didn’t, and I do not trust the president to hang tough over it like he says he will.
nothing is ever permanent, there’s just no deadline this time
Nothing is permanent, this is true. But if we can’t even make the lift now when they’re scheduled to go up if we do nothing, I don’t see any chance of them being raised when they need to be in the future. What’s more likely to happen is benefit cuts.
We’re not going to see benefit cuts if Republicans are afraid to propose them.
that is also true
Unless Democrats are foolish enough to propose them (cough, Kent Conrad, cough).
isn’t he gone with the new Congress?
is Conrad still a Senator? I thought he retired.
I don’t think that’s true. It may be a while before we can raise them again but that doesn’t really change the fact that we didn’t have the votes to get anymore than we got.
I don’t think making them permanent or temporary really makes any difference.
In a booming economy, it would have been much easier to make the lift. The problem is that the middle class tax cut expiration in aggregate would have taken a lot of consumer spending out of the economy when that’s about the only tool that Congress has given the President. When the middle class is more secure, the public is more generous. That takes a restoration of prosperity, which is really what Republicans are blocking in order to make Obama a failed President.
And people like Willard still made out like a prince:
http://www.businessinsider.com/dividend-taxes-2013-1
I’ve been watching the coverage since last night and I don’t see anyone claiming that $400,000 is middle class. It’s just the compromise number that was negotiated between the White House and Senate Minority Leader.
And a lot better compromise number than the $1 million desperately floated in the 2010 lame duck session.
There are parts of the county where $250,000 is not all that much. A two income middle class family in New York or Boston can easily surpass $250,000.
My wife and I won’t exceed $250,000 because we live in a backwater. But she’s a psychologist and I’m an attorney so we might come close. We’re by no means wealthy. My car is ten years old and her’s is 25. Seriously. We live in a rented home. No complaints but wealthy we are not. Each of us worked really hard to get where we are and each of us continues to work hard. It’s 8:00 p.m. on New Year’s Day and I’m posting from my office.
$450,000 seems a much more realistic dividing line between the wealthy and the middle class.
There are parts of the county where $250,000 is not all that much. A two income middle class family in New York or Boston can easily surpass $250,000.
How many people/families do you think actually make $250,000/yr or more?
How you feel about your income is overwhelmingly determined by where you live and who you know. And people are overwhelmingly focused on those who have more than they do. But if your household income is $200,000, you’re in the 97th percentile. So you sure aren’t poor.
Yes, not poor. But not rich either. Middle class.
The rich right the law so the ones who get screwed worst on taxes are professionals such as doctors and lawyers.
This is true, professionals do usually pay the most in taxes due to the way the wealthy of the wealthy make money, but that doesn’t mean you’re middle class. My mom nearly had a heart attack when I said our family was between the 15th and 20th percentile (household pretax income is probably around $110-120). If you include me, we’d be pushing $200k, but that would be between three people.
The median US household income in 2011 was $50,054.
Middle class income is perceptually somewhat slippery:
Far less than you consider “middle class.”
Back in 2008 Barack Obama defined middle-class as $150,000 and under. Mathematically challenged as the Freaknomics’ writer pointed out:
The debt ceiling is gonna be fun.
not really, but here’s the thing..
on the one side, you will have the President saying..
Give me a clean bill..
on the other side, you will have the lunatics talking about gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid….
clean bill…
gutting the social safety net..
and methinks that there will be few, if any Dems that will allow the nebulous’ oh we need cuts’…
I believe we will hear the screams of…
TELL US YOUR CUTS, GOP!
If they’re smart, that’s exactly what Democrats will do. Let’s hope Obama holds the line. He’s certainly making every effort to state and restate a firm position.