A quick word about this:
The CBO determined Tuesday that the package, hammered out late Monday evening by Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), would — over the next decade — come with a $3.9 trillion price tag.
The price tag is calculated based on the deficit if the Bush tax cuts had been able to completely expire. So any Republicans screaming about the fiscal cliff deal's deficit-creation doesn't know what they're talking about and, in fact, the Republicans supported a larger deficit by making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent. The president and the Democrats, meanwhile, wanted more of the tax cuts to expire than the Senate Republicans. Establishing the cut-off at $250,000 would've created less of a deficit than the McConnell-backed $400,000 cut-off.