GOP Waivers On Opposition to Tax Hikes

This is the small-government party?

Read their lips: Republicans just voted for higher taxes.

Granted, it was with a large helping of Democratic aid in the House, where Speaker John Boehner and his GOP leadership spent a turbulent New Year's Day and night dealing with a near insurrection by rank-and-file lawmakers. Many House Republicans loathed the bill passed in the wee hours of New Year's morning by the Senate, which raised taxes on Americans earning over $400,000 a year and lacked corresponding spending cuts.

But given the lopsided Senate vote in favor of the tax-hiking measure, as well as the 85 GOP House members who voted yes (151 voted no), members of the GOP have violated the party's no-new-taxes orthodoxy for the first time in two decades. It's a significant concession in the aftermath of Mitt Romney's November defeat and a potentially existential moment for a party that has prided itself on a defiant and dogmatic dislike of tax increases.