Christie blames “the toxic internal politics of the House majority” for failure on Sandy aid.
Still trying to figure out what happened yesterday with the Fiscal Cliff? Wonder how President Obama is going to handle the new debt ceiling hostage crisis? Bloomberg View’s Jonathan Alter will be taking your questions in a TPMPrime Live Chat at 4 PM eastern today. Get your questions in now.
I’ve mentioned versions of this in different posts over the last week. But with the ‘cliff’ notionally behind us, I wanted to hit the point again. Everything that happened over the last few days leaves us exactly where we were, which is that everything now comes down to a fight over the debt-ceiling — and now without the cudgel of the automatic end of the Bush tax cuts. Read More
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“The Speaker will make the supplemental his first priority in the new Congress,” a Boehner aide tells TPM. That’s DC-ese for Hurricane Sandy relief.
Trying to quell the furor, Boehner is reportedly going to meet with members of the New York and New Jersey delegations this afternoon.
Meanwhile, Gov. Chris Christie will add his voice to the outrage at a press conference in Trenton at 2 p.m. ET.
Nothing in the fiscal cliff fiasco produced anything like the raw feelings and bitter resentments — on a bipartisan basis — generated by Speaker Boehner’s decision last night to adjourn the 112th Congress without taking up Hurricane Sandy relief legislation.
This morning on CNN, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) absolutely went off on Boehner and the Republican Party. King is blustery by nature, but this was exceptional even for him, and reflects a deep anger among Members at the House GOP leadership’s last act of this Congress.
Much to be written on this vote tonight. But for starters, Majority Leader Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy voted no. That’s just stunning. It is almost as though Cantor is plotting or hatching or just purchasing his coup on layaway.
An amazing moment.
After all that, it appears — as clearly as anything can appear with this House majority — that the Senate-passed fiscal cliff deal will get a straight up or down vote in the House this evening.
No amendments to the deal. Just a straight vote.
Late Update: The final vote is expected between 11 and 11:30 p.m. ET.
Later Update: House business moving more quickly. Latest word is a final vote between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m. ET.