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All -- starting on january 1st, for all of the rates below the top tax rates. and they simply did not vote for a tax reduction on the top rates. and so claire mccaskill and some of the democrats that the republicans wanted to dare into casting that vote can very honestly claim what they voted for today was actually a tax cut. >> right. and, in fact, interestingly, and the president alluded to this, 98% of households would benefit from that tax cut, and that's something that, of course, everyone agrees on. the squabble is, of course, over the 2%. but you're absolutely right. and this is the rea...

And so this showdown is just getting closer and closer every day. >> the thing that i took from today's vote and from the kind of attitude you just heard from the president is that the democrats have real spine here. and it's something, frankly, we haven't always seen enough of. the 51 votes today, to allow those top rates to increase on the $250,000 plus group, that 2% at the top, along with the white house's consistent stance on this, patty murray and her stance, and i very much applaud the attention that you've been bringing to that, lawrence, that sounds to me like something that is very m...

At that point, all the grover norquist and the pledge silliness is off the table. at that point, members of congress can vote for a very significant tax cut to reach the middle class, like the senate did today, and simply leave the upper income rates reset where they are. that represents, as the president said, $1 trillion of needed revenue over the next ten years, on the one group who's benefited from growth in recent years. >> i want to listen to the president doing his part in making it very clear that the democrats are willing to go off the cliff. this is really scaring and shaking the rep...

Starting to understand that. >> yeah. and democrats, and the president, have gotten a lot of criticism over the years for not hanging tough. they are hanging tough on this and they are doing it for very, very sound policy reasons. jared bernstein, thank you for joining me tonight in our "off the cliff!" segment for tonight. thanks, jared. >> sure. coming up, mitt romney didn't go to london today to face questions about his income taxes, but brian williams was there to ask him why he's not releasing his tax returns. and sometimes bill o'reilly can be, quote, so dumb it hurts. those are bill...

It was much tenser. it actually became law. and the economy soared after that particular tax increase, but it seems the republican intransigents, as patty murray has identified it, is still going to send us on new year's eve off the cliff and that may be the only way that we get sensible tax policy. >> i agree with you. and i was also feeling a sense of almost -- well, elation is too strong a word, because we know where this is going, given the dysfunction in the house. but the idea that a majority in the senate, and we didn't have to -- because this was not a procedural vote, the republicans ...