Bush tax cuts codified for 99% of Americans but the bazillionaire loudmouths are unhappy.

Everyone should suffer on their behalf??

Fact is that the evil doer won and we have to live with it.

What makes this loud mouth an expert on a bill he hasn´t read?? Perhaps if the less than astute politicians in congress had done the right thing and passed a bill that favors the good of the country we wouldn´t be in this mess.

Rubio is one of 8 senators with enough brains to vote against it.

A 10% cut in defense spending is not "decimating". And, if higher tax rates kicked in for everyone, it would have brought home to Obama voters what his spending is costing the country. In other words, it would have been a good thing. Boehner needs to go, as does all the GOP leadership that was convinced by the MSM that the Cliff had to be avoided.

Now we can only look forward to inflation, collapse of the US dollar, and a Greece-like future.

Nothing against Rubio personally, but of course he voted no, he´s running for President. This is how our cynical political class works. This time he gets to be the good guy; next time it´s someone else´s turn to be our shining light.

I would have liked at least one Republican to demand real spending cuts or to allow all the tax cuts to expire - say either we must cut spending, or everyone has to pay a little more. Now the masses of idiots will never realize they pay no taxes because of President Bush.

Sadly 4, you are so right. The repubs played it all wrong. Let the country go over the cliff, let EVERYONE feel the real cost and pain of big government, then start a tax reform bill at the start of the next congress and fix the tax system, not add more.

Now the repubs have to live with losing 15% or more of the voter base that are fiscally conservative/tea party. They won´t get the votes of the "47%" and they now have finished losing the trust of many of the rest of us. In 2014, they will now lose the House.

It is so time for a third party.

Nah, if we had gone over the fiscal cliff it wouldn´t have played out politically as #6 suggests. Rather than accept the cost of the colossal government they chose, this dumbed down electorate would have placed the blame on the GOP as the evil protectors of "the rich". That certainly would have been the narrative pushed by the administration and the MSM.

I don´t see any magic bullets or wake up calls in the offing. Eventually we will have to hit bottom, and only the Good Lord knows what that will look like.

The sooner we hit bottom the better . The boneheads who voted in the second term will not capitulate until their freebies and bennies have disappeared in a puff of smoke - it´s the dose of tough love that the 51% of the country has got to experience - like being hit by a two by four - to bring some common sense into the space between their ears.

Stupid premise by this author.

The Jan 1 tax deal did NOTHING to address the real problem, the Debt Bomb.

We have two choices ahead. Cut spending in Washington, across the board, and take a normal recession. We will live through it.

Or, do nothing and take the real Fiscal Cliff, total insolvency, hyperinflation, and probably a massive war.

A recession is the best outcome we can have.

Bull-Loney...this theater was all scripted and fabricated...the losers in this are We the People!

You could easily cut 10% from every taxpayer funded program and nobody would no the difference, except those who were let go from their cushy government jobs.