Conservative groups lash out at GOP's 'fiscal cliff' counteroffer

Two high profile conservative groups lashed out Monday at the counteroffer made by House Republican leaders to President Obama in the "fiscal cliff" negotiations.
 
“Republicans were reelected in the House to stop Pres. Obama's agenda, not figure out creative ways to fund it,” Dan Holler, communications director for Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, told The Hill in an email.
 
And Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group partially funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, said the GOP offer “left conservatives wanting.”
 
"The President's proposal and Speaker Boehner's counteroffer fail to seriously deal with the reality of the problems facing the nation,” Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips said in a statement. “Conservatives are looking for a leader to fight against tax increases, to push back against wasteful government spending, and address the fiscal challenges in a bold way. Sadly this plan leaves conservatives wanting."
 
The GOP proposal, delivered to the White House on Monday with a three-page letter signed by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and four other senior House Republicans, including Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), would reduce spending by $2.2 trillion through a combination of spending cuts and entitlement reforms, and would produce $800 billion in new revenue without raising tax rates, although the plan doesn’t specify how.
 
The Republican offer was in response to the White House’s initial offer, which proposed $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue through higher rates on wealthy Americans.
 


"Speaker Boehner's counteroffer today offers disappointingly small spending reductions,” AFP’s policy director James Valvo continued in the statement. “After immediately giving in to higher taxes following the election, the Speaker has now followed up by pulling the best parts of the House budget off the table.  The only way to solve the nation's fiscal woes is to reform the runaway entitlement programs and government spending. It is disturbing that this proposal may give up the entire FY2013 spending reductions agreed to in the BCA.”