After two months of back-and-forth wrangling, the Fiscal Cliff fiasco has been temporarily averted. Politico did an excellent write up of the past two months (a must read that can be viewed here), but here are the bullet points worth noting.
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The old joke that Washington is dysfunctional doesn't seem very funny anymore. The White House, Senate and House of Representatives were on very different pages and it seemed like nobody trusted anybody else.
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The national frustration isn't just tied to Washington “outsiders”. From John Boehner swearing at Harry Reid to Democrats frustrations with Joe Biden, even the “insiders” seemed up in arms.
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Boehner comes out of this debate looking both weak and disorganized. He couldn't get the backing of his own caucus, appears to have little respect in the Senate and had to be sidelined in order to get a deal done.
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Even in his Plan B, Politico reports that Boehner said he had an ulterior motive. His plan was to get a $1-million tax rate increase, have the Senate lower it, and then have the House pass this for less money. The problem is that he's either A) lying or B) forgot to mention this to anyone.
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Partisan politics aside though, Boehner's worst blunder was not voting on the Hurricane Sandy relief bill that already passed the Senate. New England states desperately need those funds and by ignoring the bill, everything has to start over while money runs out for food and shelter.
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President Barack Obama seems very certain on what he wants, but looks concerned to push his advantage too far. After strong election results and popular opinion swinging in his favor, he pushed some advantages, but backed off of a GOP kill. This could be seen as either a timid move or fear about an uncontrollable Republican caucus in the House.
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Republicans have a serious leadership gap. Mitch McConnell, known as a hard liner opposed to any change, had to be the voice of reason because his fellow party members were out of control. Even when he took charge of the GOP negotiations though, there were House members making snide comments because a Senator was in charge of the talks.
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Democrats had some embarrassing moments as well. Joe Biden had to be called in because he's got a 20-year relationship working with McConnell and that spoke volumes. But, as the vice president, he wasn't involved in the day-to-day talks. When he asked to be filled in, some Democrats responding with head-shaking instead of helping.
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The real losers will be all of us though, because this is still unfinished business. Both sides were too terrified to let us go over The Cliff, so they just pushed off another extension instead of coming together on a solution. As a result, this mess just gets handed over to a new Congress and we start over.
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