Josh Barro, Columnist

House Republicans' Rational Idiocy

January 1, 2013 at 10:02 PM UTC

Josh Barro is the lead writer for the Ticker, Bloomberg View's blog on economics, finance and politics. His primary areas of interest include tax and fiscal policy, state and local government, and planning and land use. Previously, Barro was a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a commercial real estate banker at Wells Fargo. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard and lives in Queens, New York.

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I wrote last week about why House Republicans engage in behavior that is collectively idiotic but individually rational. They're at it again today. With a fiscal cliff compromise bill having passed the Senate early this morning by a vote of 89-8, House Republicans are now sending strong signals that they won’t go along.

Many House Republicans are saying they want to amend the Senate bill to add spending cuts. But it is hard to see how any amended bill would pass the House. Democrats are sure to prefer passing the Senate bill unamended to amending it with spending cuts that move it farther to the right. They also won’t like House Republicans’ power play. So, an amended bill is unlikely to get any Democratic votes in the House.