WASHINGTON, December 21 (By Carl Schreck for RIA Novosti) - A revolt by a group of Republican lawmakers over the so-called “fiscal cliff” budget negotiations has revealed deep fissures in a US political party renowned in recent years for its members’ discipline.
A faction of Republican anti-tax hardliners in the US House of Representatives rejected a plan on Thursday pushed by their party’s leaders to increase taxes on Americans making more than $1 million a year.
The provision was part of House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to secure a budget deal with the White House preventing more than $500 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts from kicking in Jan. 1.
“There was a perception created that the vote last night was going to increase taxes,” Boehner said of his fellow Republicans who would not back the plan. “I disagree with that characterization of the bill, but that impression was out there.”
The Republican leadership in the House has been locked in a bitter standoff with US President Barack Obama over a budget deal to head off the austerity measures and tax increases set to take effect if no agreement is reached by the end of the year.
Obama has insisted that any deal must include tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. He cites his reelection last month as giving him an overwhelming mandate to stand his ground on the issue.
During budget negotiations with Boehner, Obama has proposed increasing taxes on households with annual incomes over $400,000.
The scuttling of Boehner’s plan this week was led by relatively new members of Congress, many of whom are associated with the Tea Party movement, which is virulently opposed to any tax increases whatsoever.
“This is not Republican material,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, a vocal opponent of Boehner’s plan who was elected in 2010, told NPR. “I think that’s probably why they wisely pulled the plug and said, ‘OK, let’s regroup.’”
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, a Boehner loyalist who has served in the House since 1995, said the plan was jettisoned by 40 to 50 “chuckleheads” that all year “have screwed this place up.”
Boehner “has done everything in his power to make nice to them, to bring them along, to make them feel included, but it hasn’t mattered,” LaTourette told Fox News on Friday.
Such divisions between the party’s new and old guard are not uncommon for Republicans, said Slade Gorton, a retired Republican lawmaker who served for 18 years in the US Senate.
“New blood into the Republican party always comes from the right,” Gorton, who represented Washington State, told RIA Novosti in a telephone interview. “…As they become the establishment, they smooth off their rough edges.”
The current internal squabbling within the party stands in stark contrast to the Republicans’ reputation as an ideological monolith during the presidency of George W. Bush, when Republican leadership in Congress was famous for ensuring its members voted the party line.
But many Republican members of Congress were elected in conservative districts after running on the promise not to raise taxes, said Timothy Hagle, an expert on Republican politics at the University of Iowa.
“They realize that they can’t go back on their word,” Hagle told RIA Novosti.
Some Republicans also figure that they will be blamed regardless of whether or not a deal is reached, Hagle added.
“They think it would be better at least not to be seen as caving in on taxes,” he said.
Gorton, the former Senator from Washington State, said that while such internal dissent is nothing new in American party politics, it does come at a time of increasing political polarization in Congress and an unwillingness to compromise.
“That’s a serious problem,” Gorton said.
