Senator Mitch McConnell recently floated an idea to offer to cede to the White House and Congressional Democrats the power to raise the debt ceiling. This power is contingent upon the White House offering nonbinding spending cuts.
The White House has reportedly responded with the following counter-offer:
It appears that the White House is willing to let the Republicans maintain their control over the debt ceiling negotiations, but only if they are willing to accept raising the Social Security retirement age to 103 and to replace Medicare with a voucher system that will cover no less than .5% of Medicare patients' healthcare costs. This will be done in exchange for a .03% tax increase on titanium, platinum, and solid gold cuff-links.
To this offer House Speaker John Boehner, after briefly conferring with Tea Party leaders, Grover Norquist, and his caucus, had this reply:
The president is clearly not serious about tackling the problem of bankrupting entitlements. The House will not, NEVER, accept these job-killing cuff-link taxes. I call on the president to stop playing politics and to put his cards on the table and make a serious offer that does not raise taxes on our nation's French-cuffed job creators.
Shortly after Boehner's statement Mitch McConnell was preparing to speak, but in an embarrassing open mic incident he was overheard saying:
This job's just too hard, this job is too hard. Mommy!
Upon realizing he had been overheard, McConnell first sought out a Democrat to do the press conference for him. When he couldn't locate one, he deferred questions to the president's office.
Eric Cantor was sought for comment but he could not be located.