GOP gives Obama new fiscal cliff offer

>> our white house correspondent kristin welker is joining us now from the white house . kristin , are you able to flesh out some of the details that's being reported by the associated press amongst others?

>> reporter: well, both sides are being fairly tight-lipped right now but here is what i can tell you. my republican sources on the hill confirm that house speaker john boehner has presented the white house with a counteroffer to an offer that he apparently presented to house speaker bonn boehner on sunday. what are the details of that offer? they are not saying except to say it includes new revenues and entitlement reforms. they're also still calling on the president to release more specifics about what he would do to reform entitlements. the white house has spent much of the day pushing back against that saying look at our proposal from 2011 for deficit reduction. the two sides are meeting though, martin. as you know, the president and house speaker john boehner met on sunday and with the exception of the nugget we're getting right now, they're not telling us a whole lot. one person in the white house tells me there's a reason for that. they're trying not to release too many details, so some of this negotiation can go on behind closed doors so they can make progress on this. senior administration official noting to me that if this ripens too soon, it could spoil. essentially meaning that the political pressure on this situation could derail a deal if too much is revealed before we get closer to that deadline. but, again, what i can confirm is that according to my republican sources on the hill, house speaker john boehner has presented the white house with counteroffer to a new proposal that was delivered to them on sunday. martin?

>> congressman, you were saying earlier that you are very concerned now about the time that we have left. christine le guard of the imf, the international monetary fund , has already said this would be a catastrophe for the global economy if we slip over. do we have enough time for a deal to be done. according to kristin , it sounds as if they're getting closer.

>> it is, and, again, i certainly think logistically, yeah, you could schedule a vote and pass it and send it to the president in record time . but as you recall, when t.a.r.p. was voted on that last time when the whole eyes of the world were watching the congress, the fact is the first vote capsized because i think, frankly, people took it too much for granted that the chamber was just going to swallow what was sort of hashed out behind closed doors in too tight a process. so, again, i recognize the need to have honest communication and sometimes it has to be done behind closed doors , but the fact is the clock is getting very tight in terms of, in my opinion, something this big.

>> and your opinion is worth well because you know how congress works. going back to you for a moment, kristin , you just said that speaker boehner came back with some additional revenues, but here is the question, kristin . did that -- did you mean by that a possible tax rate increase?

>> reporter: no, to be clear i absolutely did not. they are not letting us know specifically what the revenues, what the entitlement reforms would look like. i have been trying to get specifics and i imagine hopefully we will over the next several hours or so, but, again, they're being very tight-lipped about what is actually in this deal except to say that it does include those components, and as you know, president obama was initially asking for about twice the amount in new revenues that house speaker john boehner was saying he could deliver. the house speaker getting some push back from members of his own caucus for offering up $800 billion in new revenues. of course, he wanted to achieve that by rolling back tax breaks . president obama wants rates to go up on the wealthiest americans . there is no sign that that impasse has been broken at this point. those are still one of the big issues that likely needs to be worked out. but, again, what we do have it seems at this point, at this hour, is a proposal and a counterproposal coming from the hill. martin?

>> thank you, kristin . congressman courtney, finally and briefly if i can put this to you, is it possible they're getting closer but actually they don't want to reveal that they've reached a closer agreement because it will give too much time for blood-letting?

>> it's possible because, again, just remember, people are just flying into town tonight, and so the time to present it is really now. but this week we better start seeing some real movement.

>> congressman joe courtney , i'm sorry,