Obama's unserious offer

Washington Post:
President Obama demanded Thursday that Congress relinquish control over federal debt levels and approve at least $50 billion in fresh spending to boost the economy next year as part of a deal to avert the year-end fiscal cliff, senior Republican aides said.

The proposal, delivered Thursday by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to top congressional leaders, also seeks $1.6 trillion in new taxes over the next decade, starting with an immediate increase in tax rates for top earners. It makes no concession to Republicans who want to raise cash by eliminaing tax breaks instead of raising rates.

In return, the president offered to find $400 billion in 10-year savings from federal health and retirement programs. But those savings would be wiped out, the Republican aides said, by Obama’s proposal to extend a slew of expensive policies, including emergency unemployment benefits and a temporary payroll tax holiday that is now set to expire at the end of the year.

Aides said that House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) had rejected the proposal.

After meeting with Geithner for about 45 minutes Thursday morning, Boehner announced his frustration with the offer, which was not yet made public, and with a negotiation process that he said has wasted nearly three weeks ot talks with “no substantive progress.”

“I’ve got to tell you, I’m disappointed in where we are and what has happened in the last couple of weeks,” Boehner told reporters. “I came here the day after the election and made it clear Republicans would put revenue on the table. ... But revenue is only on the table if there are serious spending cuts as part of this agreement. It’s the spending that is out of control.”

White House officials declined to immediately comment on the Republican description of their offer. But privately, administration officials expressed surprise at the level of Republican dismay over the proposal, noting that it closely mirrors the president’s 2013 budget request, as well as his recommendations to a congressional supercommittee charged with debt reduction last fall. The proposal on the debt limit, meanwhile, reflects policies first proposed by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) in the summer of 2011 and which have been in force ever since.
... 
Obama's proposal suggest he is nuts or he thinks Republicans are nuts.  It is clearly an unserious proposal based on the President's previous budget that did not get a single vote in either House.  If Obama had run on this proposal he would have lost the election.  It could be he is just a terrible negotiator.  It is also possible he may just want to go over the fiscal cliff and then blame Republicans for middle class tax increases.  But he will also saddle himself with recession which Democrats will have to defend in coming years.

I have posted before about his overrated intellect.  This is just more evidence of that.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more