Read this and try not to laugh your ass off:
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday rejected a White House offer to avoid the “fiscal cliff” that would include $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $400 billion in spending cuts and a more permanent increase in the debt ceiling, Republican aides said.
Aides said the offer was made by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Rob Nabors, a top White House adviser, during their meeting with Republican leaders in the Capitol.
While the Obama administration described the offer as reducing the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, Republicans told The Hill its tax increases amount to $600 billion more than what the Democratic-led Senate passed earlier this year when it approved legislation that would allow tax rates on top earners to rise.
“We’ve offered a balanced approach to deal with the fiscal cliff: raising revenue in a way that protects jobs while cutting spending,” said a Republican congressional aide familiar with the proposal. “But, after two weeks of discussions, the offer the White House made today is completely unbalanced and unreasonable, and amounts to little more than reiterating the president’s budget request — which failed to get a single vote in the House or Senate.”House Democrats backed the White House for putting forward an offer based on Obama’s 2013 budget.
House Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), emerging from a meeting with Geithner where leaders were briefed on the offer, said it is House GOP leaders who must now put forth their plan.
“The Republicans have made some nice, positive noises but they haven’t put a plan on the table,” Van Hollen added.
Republicans said the administration is demanding the $1.6 trillion in tax increases upfront, while the smaller amount of spending cuts would come later. The White House also wants $50 billion in new stimulus spending, according to published reports, and to make permanent a change in the way the debt ceiling is raised so that Congress can only block it with a two-thirds majority.
“This offer represents a complete break from reality,” the Republican aide said.
Au contraire, mon frère, that is precisely the “reality” that the Republicans are facing. The administration is threatening to weaken their ability to obstruct in the Senate or to blow up the economy by holding the debt ceiling hostage, while also demanding their tax hikes on the rich and refusing to offer anything remotely satisfactory (from the Republicans’ point of view) in spending cuts.
Give the president what he wants or over the cliff we go. And the GOP gets the blame no matter what happens. Maybe you shouldn’t have fucked with the president so much.
