Color me shocked.
Who could have predicted
this response to President Obama's
proposed budget from Speaker John Boehner?
“The president and I were not able to reach an agreement late last year because his offers never lived up to his rhetoric. Despite talk about so-called balance, the president’s last offer was significantly skewed in favor of higher taxes and included only modest entitlement savings. He said he could go no further toward the middle, and that’s why his last offer was rejected. In the end, the president got his tax hikes on the wealthy with no corresponding spending cuts. At some point we need to solve our spending problem, and what the president has offered would leave us with a budget that never balances. In reality, he’s moved in the wrong direction, routinely taking off the table entitlement reforms he’s previously told me he could support.
“When the president visited the Capitol last month, House Republicans stated a desire to find common ground and urged him not to make savings we agree upon conditional on another round of tax increases. If reports are accurate, the president has not heeded that call. If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there's no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes. That’s no way to lead and move the country forward." [emphasis added]
Once again, Obama offers what the Republicans say they want, beginning another round of negotiations on their ground. Once again Republicans reject it, up the ante, and get the added benefit of having Obama officially on the record behind Social Security and Medicare cuts.
And the Very Serious People will now talk about how very modest Obama's offer on entitlements is, and how if he was really serious about compromising with the Republicans, he would propose some real cuts to these programs. Lather, rinse, repeat.
