The conservative groups Club for Growth and Heritage Action expressed outrage with the concessions made in the budget proposal House Speaker John Boehner presented to President Barack Obama Friday.
The plan reportedly would allow the top tax rate to increase to 39.6 percent from 35 percent currently. The proposal includes $1 trillion of tax increases, up from $800 billion in Boehner’s prior proposal. There’s also a possibility for a one-year extension of the debt limit in exchange for spending cuts.
“The proposal, as reported, represents a clear path toward surrender on conservative principles,” Dan Holler, Heritage Action’s communications director, said in a statement,
The Hill reports.
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“Rather than fighting for real reforms that would actually solve the problem, GOP negotiators seem intent on negotiating with themselves in hopes of striking a grand bargain that will ultimately fail, as so many others have before,” said.
Chris Chocola, president of Club for Growth, didn’t mince any words either. “First Speaker Boehner offered to raise tax rates after promising not to, and now he’s offering to raise the debt ceiling,” Chocola said in a statement. “Raising tax rates is anti-growth, and raising the debt ceiling is pro-government growth – and this is the Republican position?”
Some analysts think that the concessions Boehner offered the president will enable an agreement to be reached to avoid the fiscal cliff of automatic spending increases and tax hikes set for Jan. 1.
"The political burden is now shifted back to the president, who must be willing to take on his party in order to get a deal Boehner can ultimately pass,” Sean West of Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm, told Reuters. “We do not think the president will overreach: Obama will work with Boehner to get to a deal."
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