Posted at 03:40 PM ET, 11/18/2011

The latest GOP supercommittee offer

By Greg Sargent

Lori Montgomery scoops it:

Having concluded that the parties could not agree on a far-reaching plan to raise taxes and restrain social spending, Republican members of the supercommittee worked with House Speaker John A. Boehner to develop with a smaller “Plan B” that would stop far short of the panel’s goal of $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.

Instead, Republicans proposed to achieve $640 billion in savings, primarily through cuts to domestic agency budgets, a pay freeze and bigger pension contributions for federal workers, cuts in farm subsidies and an array of other spending cuts and revenue raisers.

The offer, delivered Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, included no cuts to the Pentagon and just one small tax increase, focused on owners of corporate jets, failing two key tests for Democratic negotiators.

That “one small tax increase focused on owners of corporate jets” is indeed small. A Dem aide tells me it totaled $3 billion — out of an overall package of $640 billion.
Separately, Lori also has this:

Democratic aides said the proposal would have replaced sharp cuts to defense that are scheduled to take effect in 2013 if the supercommittee fails with cuts that would affect the middle class.

I’ll bring you more details when I get them, but suffice it to say that this doesn’t sound like an offer that was designed for Dems to accept.

By Greg Sargent  |  03:40 PM ET, 11/18/2011