John Boehner Makes An Offer: Make Tax Rates For Top Group Permanent [View all]

[The Straight Story]

John Boehner Makes An Offer: Make Tax Rates For Top Group Permanent

Oh yes, America. Republicans are certainly serious about negotiating in (cough, cough!) good faith. Clearly good faith has a different meaning to them than it does to me, since Boehner's "offer" with regard to making a "deal" on tax rates was to leave them right where they are forever and ever, amen.

Seriously, who calls this a negotiation again? Oh, that's right, the media likes to pretend Republicans are actually behaving in good faith, despite bonehead moves like this, via CNN:

One of the reasons Tuesday night's conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner did not go well was because the GOP House speaker sent the White House a fiscal cliff proposal calling for a permanent extension of Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans, including for incomes in the top 2%, a Democratic source said Wednesday.

Democrats took the GOP counter offer to mean that tax reform cannot result in any marginal rates higher than current law, according to the source, who said Boehner's proposal was a "sign" to Democrats that "Boehner and the GOP are unwilling or unable to do any sort of deal that can pass the Senate or be signed by the president."

Yes, please. Let's get a little real here, shall we? We just went through 16 months of a Presidential campaign where these rates were the centerpiece of Democrats' platform. And we won. Of course the President will agree to cement the Bush tax cuts in perpetuity. Give me a break.

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/john-boehner-makes-offer-make-tax-rates-top