This week, the country suffered a pretty serious setback in finding a solution to our generation’s greatest fiscal challenges.

The talks between the White House and the Congress have gone nowhere but backwards.  The President made an offer.  In both its scope and its composition, it mirrored the budget request he submitted to Congress earlier this year.  As the New York Times, Washington Post, and others reminded their readers, this is the same proposal that received zero votes in either the House or the Senate when he submitted it previously. 

Lord knows the Republicans and Democrats don’t agree unanimously on much these days – and certainly not on anything of substance – but one thing we all agreed on was that the President’s so-called “plan” for the government’s finances was totally unworkable.  It was a campaign document – designed to create the appearance of action and results without delivering substance in terms of solving the real problems.

The President’s plan calls for three dollars of tax increases for every one dollar of savings.  His numbers sound big, but in relation to the scale of the problem, it is a pittance.  To put this in perspective, the President’s previously proposed tax increases would reduce our roughly trillion dollar annual deficits by between $65 and $85 billion.  In other words, under the President’s tax proposal, our $1,000,000,000,000 annual deficit would go to $930,000,000,000.  His latest fiscal cliff proposal would move the $930,000,000,000 to $890,000,000,000 in annual borrowing.

For the record, $930,000,000,000 in new borrowing every year isn’t sustainable – not by a long shot.  And neither is $890,000,000,000 in annual borrowing.  So when the cuts he’s proposing in addition to the tax increases only amount to a fraction of those taxes he wants to raise, his proposal doesn’t begin to pass muster. He’s offering $40 billion a year in spending cuts.  That will cover less than one-sixth of our annual interest payments on the debt.  It doesn’t even begin to address the rest of our spending issues.    

The House is ready to work with the President to find a bipartisan solution.  The key word here isn’t “work with” and it isn’t “bipartisan”.  The key word here is “solution”.  If your proposals aren’t going to put America on a sustainable path, then don’t bother sending them my way.  I will look at and consider any proposal from anybody who wants to offer one if it will put America’s finances in order and will keep our economy from losing jobs. 

I didn’t come here to be a politician.  I came here to fix these problems.  This week, the President played politics.  We didn’t get any closer to fixing these problems.  I’m headed back to Washington again next week and I sincerely hope to have something better to report.