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Congresswoman Jenkins on Republicans' Latest Offer to Prevent Fiscal Cliff

ASHINGTON—Today, House Republican leaders sent a letter to the White House with a new offer to avert the fiscal cliff. The offer is similar to the balanced approach presented by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff, Erskine Bowles during deficit reduction talks last year. Congresswoman Jenkins is a member of the Ways and Means Committee and was recently elected to House leadership as the Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference. She released the following statement about the plan:

“The plan presented today by House Republicans would raise $800 billion in revenue over the next 10 years without raising tax rates, and offers a balanced, bipartisan approach that addresses the real problem our country faces—one that the president is ignoring—Washington’s runaway spending on mandatory programs like Medicare.

“The simple fact is: our problem is and always has been our nation is spending more than we can afford. Republicans have always been open to more revenue via tax reform. However, while we can talk about revenue all day, any proposal without reforms to mandatory spending programs is not a real solution, and will only last for a matter of days, not years. No one wants to be having these discussions a year from now. It is time to get serious and start moving forward.

“Unlike the president’s proposal of four times as many tax increases as spending cuts, this offer is both reasonable and realistic. It positions Congress to address both fundamental entitlement reform and tax reform in 2013 without doing further damage to the economy. We cannot fix everything in the next couple weeks, but this plan will allow us to hit the ground running in January without facing another recession or higher unemployment.”

For the audio of the Congresswoman’s statement click here. For text of the letter and further details about the plan please visit Speaker Boehner’s website.

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Congresswoman Jenkins on RepublicansÂ’ Latest Offer to Prevent Fiscal Cliff ( 12/03/12 02:47 PM PST )