In order for adults to get in a room, sit down at a table and solve a tough problem, there must first be adults.
Those are in disastrously short supply in Washington. As America hurtles toward the so-called fiscal cliff, with negotiations over averting deep spending cuts and killer tax hikes supposed to be underway, President Obama and Republicans are stuck in preelection posturing.
On Thursday, GOP aides circulated a summary of an initial Obama proposal, with the aim of ridiculing the White House for its paucity of spending cuts. They have an excellent point.
Despite the President’s campaign talk of a “balanced” approach, his opening bid called for $1.6 trillion in tax increases and just $400 billion in cuts to entitlements — and those were to be nailed down by August, under threat of a new cliff.
While the President is entitled to make an early lowball offer to start talks, this one cannot be taken seriously.
According to the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he “burst into laughter” at hearing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner outline the proposal.
In three weeks, the country will be inches from a series of policy changes that, if unaltered, could very well drag the economy back into recession.
Obama owes House Speaker John Boehner and his colleagues a package that lines up better with reality. A 4-to-1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts is the type of balance that would capsize an ocean liner.
Then, too, the Republicans owe the country more than guffaws. While continuing to insist that raising tax rates is anathema to the party, they have failed to specify how much new revenue they are willing to stomach, what deductions and loopholes they would close and how they would pare Medicare and Medicaid.
“You could look at our budget from the last two years, and there are plenty of specific proposals,” Boehner dodged on Friday, even as he lamented that negotiations are “almost nowhere.”
Stop circling. Stop speaking in cagey generalities. Stop playing for partisan advantage.
As Shirley MacLaine said in Billy Wilder’s great film “The Apartment,” “Shut up and deal.”
