Today, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner visited with Senate Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), where he proposed $1.6 trillion in tax increases, a one-year delay in scheduled $1.2 trillion cuts to defense and domestic spending (which would only give Obama leverage to raise taxes again in a year), and an eventual, somewhere beyond the rainbow $400 billion reduction in Medicare.
According to a source familiar with the meeting, Geithner also asked for spending increases. Geithner has also publicly asked for a permanent increase in the debt limit.
Senator McConnell laughed out loud at the proposal.
According to our source, when Geithner began reading the details of his proposed deal in Senator McConnell’s office, McConnell began smiling. Geithner saw this, and said, “I see you’re smiling. I didn’t expect you would like this.” That’s when McConnell laughed out loud at him. “Everyone understood that this whole charade was a joke,” said the source. “They’d sent Geithner up there to be the messenger of a ridiculous proposal.” After a brief back and forth, McConnell ended the meeting: “Okay, thanks for coming.”
A Senate Republican aide tells Breitbart News, “It’s clear that the White House is becoming increasingly comfortable with the cliff dive. They’re just not engaged. They’re less engaged than they were two weeks ago.”