This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 1, 2013 - WASHINGTON – After a marathon New Year’s Day of party caucuses and debates, members of Missouri's U.S. House delegation were divided when they finally cast their votes Tuesday night on the Senate-passed fiscal cliff bill.
Missouri's three House Democrats were joined by two Republicans -- U.S. Reps. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau and Blaine Luetkemeyer of St. Elizabeth -- in voting for the Senate compromise. Three other Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Wildwood, voted against.
In Metro East, both U.S. Reps. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, and John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, voted in favor of the plan to avoid the fiscal cliff.
“As a progressive Democrat, there are parts of this bill that disappoint me,” said U.S Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, who voted yes.
“But on balance, it is an adult agreement that makes middle-class tax cuts permanent, extends emergency unemployment benefits, extends child care and educational tax credits and protects job growth in emerging techologies."
Casting the final vote of his eight-year House career, U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, said in an interview that Vice President Joe Biden had done “a remarkable job” in advocating the agreement when he addressed the House Democratic caucus on Tuesday afternoon.
After the long New Year's Day of caucuses, the House voted 257-167 to accept the Senate-passed deal, with Democrats voting overwhelmingly in favor (172-16) and Republicans opposed (85-151).
In addition to Clay and Carnahan, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City, also backed the Senate deal. U.S. Reps. Billy Long, R-Springfield, and Vicky Hartzler, R-Harrisonville, joined Akin in voting no. And U.S Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, did not vote on the measure.
It was the final congressional vote for Akin, Carnahan and Costello -- all three of whom are leaving the House when the new Congress is sworn in on Thursday.
Missouri's GOP members split
Some Republicans in Missouri's delegation were unhappy with the compromise bill, which the Senate had approved early Tuesday morning by an overwhelming vote of 89-8. They said it did not do enough to address federal spending.
“This would increase spending, not reduce it. And, in my experience, any time you increase spending, it amounts to a tax increase,” said Long. He said most of his southwest Missouri constituents he heard from had opposed the deal.
In a statement after the vote, Long said, "The problem is not that people are taxed too little; the problem is that Washington spends too much. We must get serious about our nation’s fiscal situation."
Akin told reporters in the Capitol before the vote that the agreement should be amended to include significant spending cuts. Senate Democratic leaders had indicated that such an amendment might kill the deal, but one reporter quoted Akin as saying that threat was likely a bluff.
But some Republicans voted yes, including Shimkus. He said in a statement that the deal "will make the Bush tax cuts permanent for those under the income levels set in the agreement. Maintaining the current tax rates is important for both families and the economy."
Shimkus noted, however, that "a debate is still to come regarding more spending cuts, particularly since this agreement does not raise the debt ceiling, as the President had initially wanted."
Luetkemeyer called the deal "far from perfect," but said it was worthy of support because it "provides permanent tax relief for 99 percent of taxpayers" as well as "certainty to farmers, ranchers and small business owners across Missouri and America by permanently fixing the estate tax exemption at $5 million per individual."
Concerns about another 'cliff' in two months
For his part, Carnahan noted that the deal restores long-term unemployment benefits and extends tax cuts for most Americans.
“The fact that the Senate cast 89 votes for this compromise is a powerful statement that both sides gave a little, and got a little, for the good of this country to break this logjam,” he said.
Carnahan said it was “very important that this get done before this Congress concludes and before the [stock] markets open,” and added that the compromise “makes major progress on what have been very contentious issues.”
But the St. Louis lawmaker, who leaves Congress this week, expressed concern that the agreement – by putting off for two months the severe automatic budget cuts under “sequestration” – “sets up a second so-called ‘cliff’ in a couple of months.”
“It delays the sequester issue and also links it, time-wise, to when the debt ceiling issue will come up,” Carnahan said. That means Congress could face a similarly divisive debate as that deadline approaches, he said.
Like many other House members, Clay and Carnahan weren’t particularly happy about spending their New Year’s Day in meetings and a House session. For most of the day, while the House GOP leaders decided its approach to the Senate-passed deal, lawmakers found themselves waiting for decisions and action. The final vote occurred at about 10 p.m. CT.
After the lengthy Democratic caucus with Biden, Clay had attended a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss the pros and cons of the agreement. In the end, Clay said, most caucus members were “pretty favorable towards what the Senate approved.”
If Congress did not act on the fiscal cliff, Clay said there “more than likely” would have been a backlash from the public. “People would feel the pain immediately,” he said, noting the loss of long-term jobless benefits as well as a likely stock market decline.
Like other Republican lawmakers, Luetkemeyer asserted that"Congress still must come together to make substantial spending cuts and true deficit reduction because we cannot afford not to do so.
"At the end of the day, I voted for this bill because it was critical to reverse the largest tax increase in American history to the greatest extent possible."