"It's not just a bad deal. This is really an insulting deal. What Geithner offered, what you showed on the screen, Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox and he lost the Civil War."
So said syndicated Charles Krauthammer on Fox News's Special Report about the budget proposal Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner put on the table Thursday to avoid the looming fiscal cliff.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It's not just a bad deal. This is really an insulting deal. What Geithner offered, what you showed on the screen, Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox and he lost the Civil War. The Democrats won by three percent of the vote and they did not hold the House. Republicans won the House. So this is not exactly unconditional surrender, but that’s what the administration is asking of the Republicans.
This idea, there are not only no cuts in this, there is an increase in spending with a new stimulus. I mean, this is almost unheard of. I mean, what do they expect? They obviously expect the Republicans will cave on everything. I think the Republicans ought to simply walk away. The president is the president. He is the leader. They are demanding that Republicans explain all the cuts that they want to make. We had that movie a year-and-a-half ago where Paul Ryan presented a budget, a serious real budget, with real cuts. Obama was supposed to give a speech in which he would respond with a counter offer. And what did he do? He gave a speech where he had Ryan sitting on the front row. He called the Ryan proposal un-American, insulted him, offered nothing, and ran on Mediscare in the next eighteen months. And they expect the Republicans are going to do this again?
The Republicans are going to walk on this, and I think they have leverage. Yes, for Congressional Democrats it will help them in the future if Republicans absorb the blame because we’re going to have a recession. But Obama is not running again unlike the Congressional Democrats. He is going to have a recession, nine percent unemployment, two million more unemployed, and a second term that’s going to be a ruin. That is not a good proposition if you are Barack Obama.
