A senior administration official said the White House would make no new offers until Republicans changed their opposition to raising top tax rates.
WSJ
Of course, the WSJ buried the lede and spent several paragraphs talking about what the Republicans said. But go back and read that blockquote, folks.
Until the GOP agrees to raise taxes on the 2%, the White House will not make another offer. And that's from a Murdoch rag.
If you want to know what Admiral Ackbar's evil twin had to offer, it is below the Orange Squiggle of Power.
Mr. McConnell (R., Ky.) said bipartisan agreement on higher Medicare premiums for the wealthy, an increase in the Medicare eligibility age and slowing cost-of-living increases for Social Security could move both parties closer to a budget deal that averts the so-called fiscal cliff, the combination of spending cuts and tax increases that start in early January unless Washington acts.
In return for the support of Democrats, he said, Republicans would agree to include more tax revenue in a budget deal, though not from higher rates.
So they'll agree to cut deductions which mainly benefit the middle and upper middle classes, in return for cutting spending which mainly benefits the middle and upper middle classes and raising taxes on the upper middle classes.
It is as Paul Krugman said: The GOP is revealed as the party, not of the rich, but of the extremely rich. They are throwing those who make $500,000 per year under the bus to protect those who make $50,000,000 per year.
Government of the servile, by the deluded, for the greedy. Somewhere, Abe Lincoln weeps.
3:18 PM PT: In support of my thesis that capping deductions protects the super-rich at the expense of the merely rich, I give you Dr. Paul Krugman.
Krugman