Republicans voted almost two years ago to raise taxes on this January 1st...

In a Budget Reconciliation, they agreed that taxes would go up and automatic cuts would happen, including defense, if they could not come to another agreement. They voted for this "fiscal cliff". Let's not overlook this simple fact.

Of course, they thought they would win the White House, the Senate, and keep the House and all the debate would be moot. They would make the Bush taxcuts permanent. They would cut corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy by another $5 trillion dollars, just as Mitt Romney proposed, and everything would be hunky dory.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Obama won re-election. Democrats gained in the House and Senate. Republicans were rejected at the polls.

Now, they are wringing their hands because we might go over the "fiscal cliff" that they were primarily instrumental in creating. Because they wanted to hold the government hostage to raising the debt limit. Oh, what a tangled web they have woven!