President Obama wants to go off the fiscal cliff, his Republican interlocutors are beginning to believe, in light of the ‘ridiculous’ offer proposed by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to raise taxes, increase spending, and give Obama permanent unilateral power over the debt ceiling.
“After what’s happened this week, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the President of the United States wants to go off the cliff,” a Senate Republican source told The Washington Examiner. The source suggested that, over the last couple weeks, Obama decided that the election gives him a mandate to go off the cliff rather than compromise with the Republicans on taxes and budget cuts.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner reportedly knew that his offer was unacceptable. ” I didn’t expect you would like this,” Geithner told McConnell, per Breitbart News.
Obama made no indication that he would move from his positions, rather than Congress. “If Congress does nothing, every family in America will automatically see their income taxes go up on Jan. 1,” he said today in Pennsylvania. “I’m assuming that doesn’t sound good to you. That’s like the lump of coal you get for Christmas — a Scrooge Christmas.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that the Geithner pitch was not a “serious proposal” for him to entertain. “There is a stalemate,” Boehner said during a press conference on the Hill. “We’re almost nowhere.”
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