Dems Press Republicans For Specific Fiscal Plans
Democrats on Sunday said the GOP needs to put forth specific plans to solve the problem.
While Republican leaders have criticized President Obama’s proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff, Democrats on Sunday said the GOP needs to put forth specific plans to solve the problem.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the president's chief negotiator, said Republican leaders have not proposed specific plans on revenues and debt reduction that the administration can evaluate.
“What we did was put forward a very comprehensive, very carefully designed mix of savings and tax reforms to help us put us back on the path to stabilizing our debt and fixing our debt and living within our means,” he said on CNN's State of the Union, later adding, “We can't sit here and try to figure out what works for them. They have to tell us what works for them.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., echoed Geithner. “Give us your full plan because as somebody who spent more time doing business deals than I have in politics, you lay out a term sheet,” Warner said on CNN. “Give us more details.”
House Speaker John Boehner, speaking on Fox News Sunday, said that Republicans have provided ample information. “We've laid it all out for them: a dozen different ways you can raise revenue on what the president calls the richest Americans, without raising rates,” Boehner said, adding: “The president has seen a lot of the options from us.”
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., speaking on CNN, said that Boehner put revenue increases on a table shortly after the election ended, which she argued was a big step for Republicans.
“I think it's essentially a rerun of his budget proposal,” she said of Obama's proposal, adding, “For the Speaker to come forward and put revenue on the table…that was very difficult.”