Key GOP: Obama 'a Man Who Wants to Go Off the Cliff, and That's What It Is'

A member of the House Ways and Means Committee said President Obama is ready to nose-dive off the fiscal cliff, “plain and simple.”

“This is not a guy who’s serious about getting a deal. If he was so serious, he would not have met with John Boehner Sunday morning in an emergency meeting and then go out 24 hours later on a campaign stop to Michigan, railing about, you know, some middle class tax hike jargon that he’s just using,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said yesterday on Fox Business Network. “So this is a man who wants to go off the cliff, and that’s what it is.”

Host Lou Dobbs cited a Fox poll stating 57 percent say the best way to deal with the country’s deficit is through spending cuts and only 20 percent think the route is tax increases.

“What I’m worried about here is that American people really have not felt what a big tax increase is like. They have not felt the cuts that have to happen. And we’re really living off of borrowed money, and the helicopters keep flying in and dropping the money,” Nunes said.

“I’m from the state of California. The state of California just voted to make — basically, it’s the highest-taxed place on the planet. And meanwhile, jobs and people keep flowing out of California. These are tough times for the American people that we have coming to a head because we have to cut, and people aren’t ready for it yet.”

Nunes said he believes Obama thinks he has more time than he really does.

“This is why it’s important, I think, for us to tell the truth and be grown-ups. The president thinks that in short term, he can just continue to go out and campaign, and maybe in the short term, Republicans will take the blame,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, I’m ready to take the blame because I am going to tell the truth to my constituents!”

At the end of the day, the congressman said, leadership will likely tell Obama he’ll have to live with the consequences of his willingness to cliff dive.

“We are still here. We’re working. We’re willing to meet with the president. We have yet to receive anything other than that bogus plan that Geithner came and showed us a few weeks ago,” Nunes said. “…He believes at the end of the day that Republicans will just cave and take an increase in the rates.”

“I’m not up for that, and I don’t know many of my colleagues that are up for that.”