Boehner: Obama's 'fiscal cliff' deal 'mainly tax hikes' [View all]

[TomCADem]

Source: LA Times

WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders kicked off Wednesday with a fierce critique of President Obama's handling of “fiscal cliff” negotiations, part of the political posturing on both sides that has characterized efforts to avoid across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts before a January deadline.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who has been engaged in face-to-face meetings and phone calls with Obama since last weekend, dismissed the president's latest proposals as unbalanced.

“As of today, the president's plan to avert the fiscal cliff still does not meet the two standards that I laid out the day after the election,” Boehner told a news conference. “His plan does not fulfill his promise to bring a balanced approach to solving this problem. It's mainly tax hikes.”

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The latest White House plan, updated on Monday, promises to raise $1.4 trillion in new revenue chiefly from higher taxes on couples who earn more than $250,000 a year, and individuals who earn more than $200,000, along with $400 billion in spending cuts drawn largely from Medicare.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-boehner-obama-fiscal-cliff-deal-20121212,0,3461832.story

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Here is the problem with the newspaper coverage. First, no one is getting in Boehner's grill for the lack of movement on his end and the fact they have offered no movement on tax rates nor have they indicated what cuts they want in return for such tax rates hikes. Worse, the media simply lets Republicans insist that Democrats need to be the ones to guess at cuts that are acceptable to Republicans without asking why shouldn't Republicans who want the cuts offer more detail on what they want to cut.

The sad truth is that the Republican caucas is like Lord of the Flies. The goal posts will always be moved. The Republicans are not trying to avoid a fiscal or debt ceiling crisis. Instead, they seem to be unable to avoid creating such crises on purpose.