UPDATED: Boehner Counteroffer..Obama's offer contained "little movement on entitlement cuts"

[democrattotheend]

Source: http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/11/1584

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) sent a new offer on Tuesday afternoon to President Barack Obama in hopes of reaching a deal to resolve the impending "fiscal cliff."

Specific details are scarce, but the proposal apparently was made as a counter-offer to something the White House had proposed over the last few days. Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told NBC News the following:

"We sent the White House a counter-offer that would achieve tax and entitlement reform to solve our looming debt crisis and create more American jobs. As the Speaker said today, we're still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make as part of the "balanced approach" he promised the American people. The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff."

UPDATED: From Politico:
Obama sent House Republicans a counter offer to their original proposal Monday that called for $1.4 trillion in new revenue but little movement on entitlement cuts, sources said. Obama’s original revenue proposal was $1.6 trillion.

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/gop-makes-another-counter-offer-84932.html?hp=t1

Read more: First Read

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Details emerging on Twitter...it looks like the president made an offer for $1.4 trillion (down from original $1.6 trillion, which was obviously an inflated starting point), and the GOP made a counter-offer for an unspecified amount in revenue, but presumably up from $800 billion.

I found this nugget encouraging:
[div class="excerpt"]A GOP aide opined to NBC News that the president must move more quickly on “the spending side” before any deal could hope to be accomplished. A major sticking point to date has involved how much ground Republicans would give on tax rates for the wealthy.


Hopefully that means the president is holding the line on the Medicare age. At the very least, there is no evidence he has offered it...if he had, the GOP would be leaking it because they don't want to own it.

Also see
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/republicans-bring-obama-another-offer-in-fiscal-cliff

[msongs]

1. when you choose a low bargaining position to begin with, nowhere to go but down nt

[Kelvin Mace]

2. Wouldn't it be nice

to have the president the Right is actually whining about?

[democrattotheend]

5. He didn't

He doubled his opening offer from the amount of revenue he sought in 2011. He has $800 billion locked in if they let the tax rates go up automatically...he was never going to get another $800 billion voluntarily, certainly not w/o major entitlement cuts that we don't want.

[Bill USA]

3. the Fucking Repugnants still want Obama to come up with spending cuts for them.

they're the ones who want spending cuts. It's up to them to get specific. They continue to hope they can make Obama propose the specific spending cuts.

that's their job.

If Obama has to identify spending cuts he should start with all the salaries of the GOP anarchists. Cut them since they aren't the least bit interested in helping to achieve a functioning government. They've said they're there to deconstruct government. start deconstructing with those motherfucker's salaries!

[patrice]

4. The price just went up because of Michigan.

I'm thinking, from what PO said yesterday, he knows this.

[democrattotheend]

6. How so?

I am not sure I see the connection.

[patrice]

7. Downward pressure on American wages ought to be compensated with the top brackets

providing more tax revenues to make up the differences.

[Scuba]

8. "Specific details are scarce ..." Yep, that's Rusty Boner.

[LaPera]

9. Fucking republicans don't hold any cards.....

Republicans hold no cards....So many would love to see the Pentagon budget cut...Lockheed Martin $161 billion of our tax dollars, Boeing $121 billion dollars Northrop Grumman $69 billion dollars, Raytheon $57 billion dollars, General dynamics $47 billion dollars, BAE Systems $42 billion dollars, SAIC $25 billion dollars, McDonnell Douglas $24 billion dollars, General Electric $19 billion dollars, Oshkosh $18 billion dollars and hundreds of more corporations receiving big paychecks annually from the Pentagon military industrial complex from our tax dollars...wars for corporate profits – it doesn't matter how many die – just as long as we can fool the Americans that the wars are patriotic and that these wars for corporate profits are to protect them....then the corporations can continue to make trillions of dollars....and imperialistic control of mid-east oil fields so the oil corporations can gouge us at the pumps for even more gargantuan profits.

Even with the debt ceiling the republicans hold no cards....for one thing it's money that congress has already spent and has to pay back and the American people by a huge percentage will blame the republicans.

No cuts to medicare - that's where tens of millions WANT their tax dollars spent social safety nets ....NOT on the corporations eating up our tax dollar via the pentagon government contracts, receiving government subsidies, use collusion and off-shore tax havens to hide their money from even paying a dime in taxes..... and then these fuckers want even more - while pointing the fingers at middle-class working people and small businesses that should pay more instead of them.