When a Robot Signs a Bill
By Brian ResnickYesterday, the president was in Hawaii but the recently passed fiscal-cliff deal was in Washington. How could the presidential signature be affixed to the bill to make it law? Obama signed it via a robot, the autopen.
Here’s a brief history of the gadget. (Did you know Thomas Jefferson was the first president to use it?)
Just want to point out that this robotic pen is literally signing its John Hancock (look closely at the photo).
10:45 p.m.: The House passes the Fiscal Cliff bill, after a solid day of hand-wringing
11:25 p.m.: Obama wearily speaks to reporters regarding the deal made, after signing the bill.
11:32 p.m.: Obama plots his trip back to Hawaii. “My work is done here,” he was probably saying to himself as he boarded Air Force One.
Senate Democratic aide: White House and GOP reach deal on fiscal cliff.
Some details on the deal, from CBS:
Tax rates: current tax rates will be extended for all wage earners making below $400,000 and couples making below $450,000. This was a key concession for both Republicans and Democrats. Democrats wanted the threshold for tax increases to rest at $250,000 and Republicans didn’t want marginal tax rates to increase for anyone.
The estate tax: it was set to increase from rom 35 percent to 55 percent in 2013. Instead, the compromise sets the new rate at 40 percent with the first $5 million worth of property exempt from being taxed.
Capital gains tax: Capital gains and dividend tax rates will increase from 15 to 20 percent.
Alternative Minimum Tax: a permanent fix to the tax that would hit middle class families “Doc Fix”: doctors will be shielded from a massive reimbursement gap for treating Medicare patients.
Unemployment benefits: unemployed workers will receive their benefits which expired over the weekend.
Renewable energy tax credit: the tax credit for renewable energy companies will be extended for another year.
The deal involves a little bit of kicking the can down the road: Sequestration will be held off for two months. Which means that, for the first time ever, an odd-numbered year may be a leap year, as the deal would expire at the end of February.
First, with the exception of a dozen or so Republicans in the House and Maine’s Susan Collins in the Senate, the number of GOP members of the 113th Congress who see cutting a deal with the president — in the fiscal cliff or, frankly, anything else — as politically advantageous is close to zero.
Second, while House Democrats are equally de-incentivized to working across the aisle, there is a large-ish group of Senate Democrats who must find ways of showing their bipartisan spirit if they want to win reelection in states that didn’t favor their party — or even come close to doing so — in the 2012 election.
Those twin political realities make the ground on which the fiscal cliff fight — and future scuffles over gun control measures, etc. — less heavily tilted toward Democrats than you might think.
Cillizza’s argument is based on the fact that few of the Republicans currently in office reside in districts or states where Obama won. Meanwhile, a number of Democrats (especially in the Senate) are in districts or states where Obama lost, big time. Will be interesting to see if this “what’s in it for me” analysis holds up.
A White House official said on Tuesday that the president could depart as early as Wednesday.
Meanwhile, both chambers of Congress will come back from their holiday hiatus on Thursday and return to work. While there are growing signs that some members of both parties are prepared to accept a deal that raises taxes on people at the highest income levels, there is considerable distance between Republicans and Democrats and no guarantee that an agreement could pass.
Someone, somewhere, is probably gritting their teeth at the thought that the president took a vacation at all. To which we say, telecommuting.
For 16 months, Democrats and Republicans behaved like a husband and wife in an ugly divorce proceeding, not speaking to each other except through invective.
Now they will see if their troubled marriage can be salvaged, for the sake of the children, which in this case is the U.S. economy. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reiterated last week that jumping off the cliff would boost the jobless rate to 9 percent from the current 7.9 percent.
For Obama, who won four more years in office in Tuesday’s election, this is his moment to bring a “balanced approach” to healing the nation’s fiscal problems.
In the Democrat’s eyes, that means keeping lower tax rates for the poor and middle class, while forcing the rich to pay more income taxes. White House spokesman Jay Carney renewed the president’s vow to veto legislation that simply extends the tax cuts, which originated during the administration of President George W. Bush.
If Republicans were to agree to the higher tax rates on the wealthy, that would open the door to deals on a new round of spending cuts, including sensitive “entitlement” programs, such as the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly, some Democrats say privately.
Get these guys some couples’ therapy. Please.
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