Boehner Makes New Fiscal Cliff Offer Of Sorts

by 24/7 Wall St. Dec 3rd 2012 3:37PM

West side view of the United States Capitol building. Speaker of the House John Boehner has sent a letter to President Obama suggesting a more balanced $4.6 trillion approach to avert the coming fiscal cliff. The letter goes mostly back to the Simpson-Bowles framework. The letter criticises the doubling of tax revenue aims with 4-times the revenue versus spending cuts. Those spending cuts are also said to be effectively cancelled out if you include the stimulus efforts. Boehner has also gone on to say that the President's proposal also removes any and all limits on federal borrowing. Boehner maintained that the latest proposal was neither balanced nor realistic.

Boehner maintained that the Bowles effort called for significant spending cuts as well as $800 billion in new revenue. The Bowles plan would cut more than $900 billion in mandatory spending and another $300 billion in discretionary spending.

In the letter, Boehner also said again that the new revenue would be generated through pro-growth tax reform that closes special-interest loopholes and deductions while lowering rates rather than via higher tax rates.

What is obvious more and more each day is that both sides are not anywhere close to reaching a deal. The president wants to keep up spending and increase taxes and the Republican plan seems unwilling to discuss notional tax rates. The fiscal cliff is coming and this is one where neither side seems to be softening up to the middle.

The DJIA is down 51 points at 12.974 so far on the day, down 100 points from before that recessionary ISM report came out at 10:00 AM EST this morning.

FULL LETTER IS HERE

JON C. OGG

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Banking & Finance, Economy, Personal Finance, Politics Tagged: featured

Learn about investing from the comfort of your own home.

Portfolio Basics

Take the first steps to building your portfolio.

View Course »

Investment Strategies

Learn the strategies you need to build a winning portfolio

View Course »

View All Courses

Add a Comment

Sign in »

1 Comment

Filter by:

Pat

We are going over the ( CLIFF )?. Lets just quit 'Huffing' and 'Puffing' about it and just DO IT! Niether sisde is going to really budge and come to any sort of agreement, so lets all quit thinking there will be ANY kind of agreement on ANYTHING! This country REALLY NEEDS TO GET RID OF ALL THE OLD BUSH TAX CUTS! This Congress needs to lift the Social Secrurity tax limits on ALL income! New start when you can apply for Social Security would be 64, not 62, because people are now living longer. Even if you are a Billionaire and you paid into Social Security all those early years, you are still entitiled to your Social Security check every month, like the rest of us, when you retire! The fat cat Congressmen should be required to do the same! Same goes for the President and the Vice President! But they think they are Kings and Queens above us peasents and deserve much better health care than us little people! This country is on its way to Bankrupcy. I watch our Congress and The President, I just cannot believe how far apart they are on how they think. The president wants to give millions of illegal Aliens free entry into the United States, so they can take away the few jobs that are still available, so he can get the Hespanic vote. Well he got elected, but it killed the job market for many years for the young legal Americans people trying to find a job. Thanks Obama, you just drove down the local medium wages by about $ 3.00 dollars an hour for everybody, because those new workers will now work much cheaper than the legal Americans will. American companys thank you, as they will now pay less per Hespanic worker too. Hey, anybody getting a raise out there lately? I didn't think so! Ah, the cliff..... It's going to happen, so lets get it over and done with! Bush tax cuts need to go! FOREVER!

December 03 2012 at 4:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply