Bill to Avert Fiscal Cliff Heads to House - ABC News

Squarely in the spotlight, House Republicans began deciding their next move Tuesday after the Senate overwhelmingly approved compromise legislation negating a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies.

As GOP lawmakers met privately to gauge support for the accord, Vice President Joe Biden tried selling the deal in a separate closed-door gathering of House Democrats. Biden was reprising his role of Monday night, when he pushed Democratic senators to back the agreement that he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had brokered hours earlier.

In a New Year's Day drama that climaxed in the middle of the night, the Senate endorsed the legislation by 89-8 early Tuesday.

It would prevent middle-class taxes from going up but would raise rates on higher incomes. It would also block spending cuts for two months, extend unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, prevent a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients and prevent a spike in milk prices.

The measure ensures that lawmakers will have to revisit difficult budget questions in just a few weeks, as relief from painful spending cuts expires and the government requires an increase in its borrowing cap.

House Speaker John Boehner pointedly refrained from endorsing the agreement, though he's promised a vote on it or a GOP alternative right away. The exact timing of the vote was uncertain.

As the House began a rare New Year's Day session, it was clear that there were divisions among lawmakers from both parties.

Rep. James Moran, D-Va., called it "a bad deal for America." Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., said approving it would "show the American people that this Congress isn't broken."

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said that while he might vote for it, "I won't do it thinking we've accomplished anything here today, other than the smallest finger in a dike that in fact has hundreds of holes in it."

Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., arrived at the Capitol in late morning, and both bid "Happy New Year" to greeters but didn't say anything substantive about the Senate-passed bill.

One of the more conservative House Republicans, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, had no such reticence to speak.

"It's three strikes in my book and I'll be voting no on this bill," he told CNN Tuesday morning, saying the legislation would impose a hardship on small businesses around the country and falls short of addressing the need for cuts in spending.

The measure is the first significant bipartisan tax increase since 1990, when former President George H.W. Bush violated his "read my lips" promise on taxes. It would raise an additional $620 billion over the coming decade when compared with revenues after tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, during the Bush administration. But because those policies expired at midnight Monday, the measure is officially scored as a whopping $3.9 trillion tax cut over the next decade.

President Barack Obama praised the agreement after the Senate's vote.

"While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay," Obama said in a statement. "This agreement will also grow the economy and shrink our deficits in a balanced way — by investing in our middle class, and by asking the wealthy to pay a little more."