Washington ( CNN ) -- Congress went beyond the edge of the fiscal cliff to get a deal done in back-to-back , late-night sessions to avert a financial crisis , or at least to put it off for a couple months . Here are winners and losers in the deal : . Winners . Vice President Joe Biden : This might not have been the `` Big f***ing deal '' that he proclaimed the passage of Obamacare to be , but it was a pretty big deal . Biden used his years of experience cutting deals in the Senate to work out a compromise with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell . He used the same playbook in the first extension of the Bush-era tax cuts in 2010 and the debt ceiling fight in 2011 , walking through the proposal with progressives in the Senate and then the House to bring them in line . Then he went and got a sandwich . Biden has n't ruled out a run for the White House when Obama 's second term is up and his role in this deal makes a President Biden believable . Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell : He found the `` dance partner '' he was looking for in Biden and skillfully worked behind the scenes with the vice president to broker a deal that got overwhelming Republican support in the Senate . It 's too early to tell whether McConnell will pay the price with hard-line conservatives at home in Kentucky who have already shown that they can oust Senate incumbents who anger them by working with Democrats . No real Republican opponent has emerged in his re-election race in 2014 but they mobilized two years ago to elect Rand Paul to the Senate over McConnell 's hand-picked candidate . Inside the deal . President Barack Obama : White House insiders say he learned lessons in his first term and would be a tougher negotiator in his second . He did n't get the big deal that he set out for and some progressives think that he gave too much away , but getting Republican votes to raise taxes on the wealthy is significant . And he did pick Biden to be his vice president . The wealthy : Despite higher taxes , it could have been a lot worse . The unemployed : Another year of benefits for those actively looking for work . Five things to know about the fiscal cliff . Losers . The employed : The two-year payroll tax holiday is over , so take-home pay will go down -- around $ 2,000 less a year for the average wage earner as the rate went from 4.2 % to 6.2 % . But ending the tax holiday will add about $ 120 billion to federal coffers . House Speaker John Boehner : He had to pull his `` Plan B '' back from the floor when it became clear that he did n't have the Republican votes for passage and then had to sit back and watch McConnell make a deal with Biden . On Tuesday , he was reduced to dodging microphones and listening to conservative members vent about the deal that was forced on them . While weakened , Boehner 's standing appears safe , though . Really , who would want this job ? House Republicans : Could their reputation get any worse ? First , they publicly threaten the deal passed by the Senate to up the anxiety for the nation on New Year 's Day . And then they cave when the votes to add spending cuts to that proposal never materialized . Finally , they tell Superstorm Sandy victims waiting for more help from Washington to wait longer -- pushing back a vote on an aid package . A grand bargain : Have you seen anything that makes you think these guys get a long-term deal done to address the real crisis on the debt ceiling a few more weeks down the road ? The can : That poor sucker gets a couple more dents and a few more scuffs as it gets kicked down the road again . iReport : What 's your message for Washington ?
Biden and McConnell lauded for their ability to work together on deal . Obama sticks to his guns on deal -- for the most part . Boehner takes some licks in fiscal cliff drama . Congressional Republicans criticized for threatening deal .