and while we're at it extend the debt ceiling and unemployment benefits, and we don't cut off Boehner's balls and string them on a necklace for Nancy Pelosi. More money for defense is optional.
If we go over the "cliff", same deal plus the necklace and the Speakership for Nancy.
After all although Democrats prefer option 2 we are not willing to put partisan interests above the good of the country and subject hardworking Americans to the confusion and uncertainty of tax rates that change midyear. But we will live with it if you force us.
No we are not gonna propose policies we disagree with in the hope of finding something sufficiently toxic that you can blame us for so you will allow us to do the stuff you also want to do. If you really want to demand some absurd unpopular and counterproductive policy as the price of going along, you will have to propose it, vote for it as a freestanding amendment, and own it in the 2014 election. We will let you keep it in conference if we think you are really fucked.
No we are not gonna undo Obamacare, or take any action which will reduce the number of Americans who have health insurance. Making sure that every American actually has health insurance (with free preventative care) is, by the way, the primary way we expect to control the cost of entitlements.
No we are not gonna add an expensive, cumbersome and immensely unpopular means test of Medicare, so we can increase the administrative costs without actually saving anything.
By the way Susan Rice gets to be the next Secretary of State, and we will spare you the embarassment of hearings on whether any Republican congress critters actually leaked classified information that aided our enemies in an effort to prove the administration was involved in a criminal conspiracy to avoid confirming Obama's critique that Romney was an idiot for naming Russia rather than Al Qaeda the top threat facing the country.
Those are my terms. I hope and expect that the Obama administration and Dems have got this and that is what they are proposing as well.
What are your terms for avoiding the fiscal cliff?