Fiscal Cliff

This recent Congressional term could not have ended sooner.

By far, this has been the least productive Congress that anyone can ever recall.

It gets worse.  The Republican Tea Party has sold their souls to Grover Norquist in order to prevent passage of anything that raises taxes for the wealthiest Americans.  In essence, by not voting against tax hikes for a few, they are supporting tax hikes for everyone without placing a single vote in the House of Representatives.

House Speaker John Boehner's legacy has been set today.  He will go down as one of the worst Speakers of the House.

The thing with the GOP is that they are putting the good of a few over the good of everybody in the country.  They are putting their egos before the country.  It's not right and shouldn't be.

This is a party that has shown they don't want to exist anymore.  The Republican Party, as we used to know it, is dead as can be.  They are never coming back into existence.  Maybe in the form of a third party but who knows.

Because of John Boehner's failure to lead, unemployment benefits will expire for 2 million Americans.  These Americans will likely be forced to file for bankruptcy, no doubt.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution has more details on the fiscal cliff deal. 
The basic contents are as follows:
TITLE I—GENERAL EXTENSIONS
Subtitle A—Tax Relief
Sec. 101. Permanent extension and modification of 2001 tax relief.
Sec. 102. Permanent extension and modification of 2003 tax relief.
Sec. 103. Extension of 2009 tax relief.
Sec. 104. Permanent alternative minimum tax relief.

TITLE II—INDIVIDUAL TAX EXTENDERS
Sec. 201. Extension of deduction for certain expenses of elementary and secondary school teachers.
Sec. 202. Extension of exclusion from gross income of discharge of qualified principal residence indebtedness.
Sec. 203. Extension of parity for exclusion from income for employer-provided mass transit and parking benefits.
Sec. 204. Extension of mortgage insurance premiums treated as qualified residence interest.
Sec. 205. Extension of deduction of State and local general sales taxes.
Sec. 206. Extension of special rule for contributions of capital gain real property made for conservation purposes.
Sec. 207. Extension of above-the-line deduction for qualified tuition and related expenses.
Sec. 208. Extension of tax-free distributions from individual retirement plans for charitable purposes.
Sec. 209. Improve and make permanent the provision authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to disclose certain return and return information to certain prison officials.

TITLE III—BUSINESS TAX EXTENDERS
Sec. 301. Extension and modification of research credit.
Sec. 302. Extension of temporary minimum low-income tax credit rate for nonfederally subsidized new buildings.
Sec. 303. Extension of housing allowance exclusion for determining area median gross income for qualified residential rental project exempt facility bonds.
Sec. 304. Extension of Indian employment tax credit.
Sec. 305. Extension of new markets tax credit.
Sec. 306. Extension of railroad track maintenance credit.
Sec. 307. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.
Sec. 308. Extension of employer wage credit for employees who are active duty members of the uniformed services.
Sec. 309. Extension of work opportunity tax credit.
Sec. 310. Extension of qualified zone academy bonds.
Sec. 311. Extension of 15-year straight-line cost recovery for qualified leasehold improvements, qualified restaurant buildings and improvements, and qualified retail improvements.
Sec. 312. Extension of 7-year recovery period for motorsports entertainment complexes.
Sec. 313. Extension of accelerated depreciation for business property on an Indian reservation.
Sec. 314. Extension of enhanced charitable deduction for contributions of food inventory.
Sec. 315. Extension of increased expensing limitations and treatment of certain real property as section 179 property.
Sec. 316. Extension of election to expense mine safety equipment.
Sec. 317. Extension of special expensing rules for certain film and television productions.
Sec. 318. Extension of deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic production activities in Puerto Rico.
Sec. 319. Extension of modification of tax treatment of certain payments to controlling exempt organizations.
Sec. 320. Extension of treatment of certain dividends of regulated investment companies.
Sec. 321. Extension of RIC qualified investment entity treatment under FIRPTA.
Sec. 322. Extension of subpart F exception for active financing income.
Sec. 323. Extension of look-thru treatment of payments between related controlled foreign corporations under foreign personal holding company rules.
Sec. 324. Extension of temporary exclusion of 100 percent of gain on certain small business stock.
Sec. 325. Extension of basis adjustment to stock of S corporations making charitable contributions of property.
Sec. 326. Extension of reduction in S-corporation recognition period for builtin gains tax.
Sec. 327. Extension of empowerment zone tax incentives.
Sec. 328. Extension of tax-exempt financing for New York Liberty Zone.
Sec. 329. Extension of temporary increase in limit on cover over of rum excise taxes to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Sec. 330. Modification and extension of American Samoa economic development credit.
Sec. 331. Extension and modification of bonus depreciation.

TITLE IV—ENERGY TAX EXTENDERS
Sec. 401. Extension of credit for energy-efficient existing homes.
Sec. 402. Extension of credit for alternative fuel vehicle refueling property.
Sec. 403. Extension of credit for 2- or 3-wheeled plug-in electric vehicles.
Sec. 404. Extension and modification of cellulosic biofuel producer credit.
Sec. 405. Extension of incentives for biodiesel and renewable diesel.
Sec. 406. Extension of production credit for Indian coal facilities placed in service before 2009.
Sec. 407. Extension and modification of credits with respect to facilities producing energy from certain renewable resources.
Sec. 408. Extension of credit for energy-efficient new homes.
Sec. 409. Extension of credit for energy-efficient appliances.
Sec. 410. Extension and modification of special allowance for cellulosic biofuel plant property.
Sec. 411. Extension of special rule for sales or dispositions to implement FERC or State electric restructuring policy for qualified electric utilities.
Sec. 412. Extension of alternative fuels excise tax credits.

TITLE V—UNEMPLOYMENT
Sec. 501. Extension of emergency unemployment compensation program.
Sec. 502. Temporary extension of extended benefit provisions.
Sec. 503. Extension of funding for reemployment services and reemployment and eligibility assessment activities.
Sec. 504. Additional extended unemployment benefits under the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.

TITLE VI—MEDICARE AND OTHER HEALTH EXTENSIONS
Subtitle A—Medicare Extensions
Sec. 601. Medicare physician payment update.
Sec. 602. Work geographic adjustment.
Sec. 603. Payment for outpatient therapy services.
Sec. 604. Ambulance add-on payments.
Sec. 605. Extension of Medicare inpatient hospital payment adjustment for lowvolume hospitals.
Sec. 606. Extension of the Medicare-dependent hospital (MDH) program.
Sec. 607. Extension for specialized Medicare Advantage plans for special needs individuals.
Sec. 608. Extension of Medicare reasonable cost contracts.
Sec. 609. Performance improvement.
Sec. 610. Extension of funding outreach and assistance for low-income programs.

Subtitle B—Other Health Extensions
Sec. 621. Extension of the qualifying individual (QI) program.
Sec. 622. Extension of Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA).
Sec. 623. Extension of Medicaid and CHIP Express Lane option.
Sec. 624. Extension of family-to-family health information centers.
Sec. 625. Extension of Special Diabetes Program for Type I diabetes and for Indians.

Subtitle C—Other Health Provisions
Sec. 631. IPPS documentation and coding adjustment for implementation of MS-DRGs.
Sec. 632. Revisions to the Medicare ESRD bundled payment system to reflect findings in the GAO report.
Sec. 633. Treatment of multiple service payment policies for therapy services.
Sec. 634. Payment for certain radiology services furnished under the Medicare hospital outpatient department prospective payment system.
Sec. 635. Adjustment of equipment utilization rate for advanced imaging services.
Sec. 636. Medicare payment of competitive prices for diabetic supplies and elimination of overpayment for diabetic supplies.
Sec. 637. Medicare payment adjustment for non-emergency ambulance transports for ESRD beneficiaries.
Sec. 638. Removing obstacles to collection of overpayments.
Sec. 639. Medicare advantage coding intensity adjustment.
Sec. 640. Elimination of all funding for the Medicare Improvement Fund.
Sec. 641. Rebasing of State DSH allotments.
Sec. 642. Repeal of CLASS program.
Sec. 643. Commission on Long-Term Care.
Sec. 644. Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan program contingency fund.

TITLE VII—EXTENSION OF AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMS
Sec. 701. 1-year extension of agricultural programs.
Sec. 702. Supplemental agricultural disaster assistance.

TITLE IX—MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
Sec. 901. Strategic delivery systems.
Sec. 902. No cost of living adjustment in pay of members of congress.

TITLE X—BUDGET PROVISIONS
Subtitle A—Modifications of Sequestration
Sec. 1001. Treatment of sequester.
Sec. 1002. Amounts in applicable retirement plans may be transferred to designated Roth accounts without distribution