Romeo Area Tea Party criticizes GOP 'capitulation' in fiscal cliff talks

The Romeo Area Tea Party, one of the largest and most active tea party groups in southeast Michigan, has weighed in with a resounding thumbs down to the House GOP plan for avoiding the fiscal cliff.

In a message to members, the party’s communications chief, Phil Dyer, wrote:  I wonder how much "capitulation" we will see over the next 4 years.”

The email message features a reprint of a Heritage Foundation commentary that says the counteroffer presented by House Speaker John Boehner “abandons core principles” and accepts a reduction in tax exemptions and credits that amount to tax “deform,” not reform.

Obviously, the RATP has no use for the vague, modest proposal put forward by President Obama. But the criticism of the counteroffer is that it suffers from some of the same vagueness and short-sightedness.

Here’s a portion of the Heritage piece favored by the RATP:

“The fiscal cliff contrived by President Obama and the Congress over the past two years creates a tremendous opportunity for Republicans and Democrats alike to come together on some simple yet profound, widely understood and commonsense reforms to the real drivers of the nation’s fiscal troubles —Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Beyond disappointing, the House Republican counteroffer appears at best to suggest incremental tweaks to these programs. Without real entitlement reform—not just spending cuts—we will never fix the underlying problem.

“Real, substantive reforms are badly needed, as the Boehner letter (to the president) affirms in observing ‘these reforms are, in our view, absolutely essential to addressing the true drivers of our debt.’ They (party leaders) then go on to observe, ‘we recognize it would be counterproductive to publicly or privately propose entitlement reforms that you and the leaders of your party appear unwilling to support’ (emphasis added). Rarely in modern American politics have more counterproductive, more foolish words been set to paper.”