Boehner rejects an offer that no one in the WH has confirmed on record?

[ProSense]

Where the hell are the Democrats?

Obama, Boehner inch closer to debt deal

By Steve Benen

As fiscal talks in Washington continue, it's generally wise not to react too strongly, one way or the other, to various offers and counteroffers. There's a high degree of fluidity to every relevant detail, and provisions are constantly changing. Two weeks ago, for example, a lot of folks seemed convinced that President Obama was poised to accept an increase in the Medicare eligibility age, and now that idea is apparently "a line White House is unwilling to cross."

That said, while the caveats are important, there is ample evidence that Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) are inching closer to a deal.

President Obama delivered to Speaker John A. Boehner a new offer on Monday to resolve the pending fiscal crisis, a deal that would raise revenues by $1.2 trillion over the next decade but keep in place the Bush-era tax rates for any household with earnings below $400,000.

The offer is close to a plan proposed by the speaker on Friday, and both sides expressed confidence that they were closing in on a major deficit-reduction plan that could be passed well before January, when more than a half-trillion dollars in automatic tax increases and spending cuts would kick in.

This is no small concession of the president's part. He proposed higher marginal top rates on income above $250,000, while Boehner counter-offered with a $1 million threshold. Obama, despite a strong public mandate on the issue, has moved his figure to $400,000 in this latest offer...The president has also lowered his overall tax revenue target to $1.2 trillion, from his initial offer of $1.6 trillion.

On the other side of the ledger, Obama is offering $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, including $400 billion in health care savings, $200 billion from other mandatory programs such as farm price supports, $100 billion in military spending cuts; $100 billion from domestic programs, $290 billion in savings from lower interest on the debt, and $130 billion is savings from "chaining" the Consumer Price Index...Is this a good deal? At a certain level, it doesn't matter, since Boehner says it's not good enough and it wouldn't pass the House...From a progressive perspective, "chaining" the CPI is obviously the most problematic element. For many Democrats in Washington, there seems to be a sense that some kind of entitlement cut will invariably be part of any bipartisan deal, and that the CPI measure is arguably the least offensive of bad options, but that's not much of a defense.

- more -

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/12/18/15992244-obama-boehner-inch-closer-to-debt-deal

This amounts to unnecessarily giving Republicans a cookie for being hostage takers.

Social Security should not be part of the negotiations, and the President needs to stand his ground and protect benefits for seniors. He has repeatedly said he would and that Social Security is not a deficit driver (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022016846).

Why the sudden urgency to drag Social Security into this?

[Warren Stupidity]

1. As an aside, I am personally glad to see you posting from this perspective.

The Democratic base needs to speak with one voice: no cuts to social security, no cuts to medicare, no cuts to medicaid. The excesses of the Bush years will not be paid for by the elderly, by the poor, and by working families. They will be paid for by those who benefited: the rich, the 1%.

[Panasonic]

2. If that offer is true, then Obama needs to get Boehner to say no (which he did), so that way

Republicans are even more endangered when a REPUBLICAN compromise was offered and rejected by the Republicans.

Okay, say hello to New Majority Leader, Nancy Pelosi - all she has to do is convince a few moderate Republicans to quit the Party and go independent caucusing for the Democratic Party.

[ProSense]

3. There shouldn't be a need to bluff anymore. I mean,

we won, and Americans do not support cutting benefits.



It's time to let Republicans jump off the cliff on their own.

[Panasonic]

5. Agreed

Even the Senate should be smart enough to reject the chained CPI.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. Catfood Commission 3: Faster, Austerity, Shill, Shill