After voters rejected Republican economic proposals, the GOP sought the appearance of “compromise” with the president on averting the so-called fiscal cliff. The gesture was strictly rhetorical, since their stance just restates the Romney/Ryan tax plan to disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans, coupled with steep cuts to entitlement programs for the middle class.

On Fox News Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner summarized the three major myths Republicans have used in fiscal showdown negotiations:

MYTH: Feigning shock at economic proposals that voters endorsed: Boehner said the White House’s initial outline to avert the so-called fiscal cliff was a complete surprise: “I was flabbergasted. I said you can’t be serious. I have never seen anything like it.” However, much of President Obama’s current proposal appeared in his 20-page plan, released in October, which has explicit mentions of tax cuts for the middle class, small business tax breaks, and entitlement savings. At the time, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)dismissed it as a “glossy” brochure, and “nothing but a rehash of the same failed ideas of the past four years.” Boehner and Hatch are pretending to encounter Obama’s economic plan for the first time, when it has been on the table well before he won reelection.

MYTH: “We have laid it all out for them, a dozen ways to raise the revenue from the richest Americans.” Boehner claimed that Republicans have detailed their revenue counterplan to Obama’s proposal to allow Bush tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest 2 percent, while extending them for the middle class. On Sunday, pressed to provide details on their biggest proposal since the election, Boehner dodged answering. Rather than increase marginal tax rates on the richest Americans, Republicans back eliminating tax loopholes and entitlement cuts mirrored in Paul Ryan’s budget. The pitch is much like Mitt Romney’s, which attracted criticism for his lack of specificity on which loopholes could make up for lower tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.

MYTH: Obama has “put $400 billion worth of unspecified cuts” on the table. Boehner claimed Obama’s “unserious proposal” lacks details on what entitlement savings he would put forward. But the details for Obama’s proposal for $400 billion in savings in Medicare and other social programs have existed for quite some time, in his FY 2013 budget released in February. It includes $600 billion in “reforms and savings, to our health care and other government programs,” without the dramatic restructuring that Republicans propose, as well as $1.6 trillion in revenue.

During an appearance on Meet The Press Sunday morning, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) repeatedly dodged host David Gregory’s questions on whether or not he would be willing to accept increases on the wealthiest Americans’ tax rates in a deal to prevent the nation from going over the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

Instead, Corker referred to his own recently-proposed plan to raise revenue through closing tax loopholes. When pressed by Gregory on whether this would be the only revenue source that he would consider in a deal, he replied that revenues through capping deductions and eliminating loopholes would be a more “pro-growth” approach, but conspicuously did not rule out a rate hike on wealthier Americans’ marginal tax rates:

CORKER: Look, Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell both have put revenues on the table.

DAVID GREGORY (HOST): Let’s just understand. Everybody in Washington says revenues. There’s increasing your tax rates and there’s finding other ways to raise tax revenue. And the distinction is important, because what republicans object to is raising your tax rates — Your actual marginal tax rates. That’s the distinction that you have to answer, right?

CORKER: Well, you can get there two ways. One of the ways is the way I proposed, which is closing loopholes. That’s a pro-growth way of getting more revenues from wealthy Americans. And I think, David, before this is all over with, there’s lots of machinations. There’s capital gains, dividends. And I think cooler heads will prevail. And I think we will resolve this. And that’s the very best thing we can do to get our economy going.

Republicans have been generally vague in outlining an acceptable compromise on Americans’ tax rates.

But an increasing number of GOP lawmakers have been backing away from absolutist dogma on increasing the wealthiest Americans’ tax rates in a deal with President Obama. Recently, prominent GOP senators such as Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) have signaled that they are open to increasing taxes in order to avert the “fiscal cliff.”

Last week, Corker also backed away from anti-tax purist Grover Norquist’s pledge to not raise taxes under any circumstances, asserting, “I am not obligated on the pledge.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) took to Fox News Sunday to counter Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s fiscal showdown proposals, claiming, “We’re nowhere — period. We’re nowhere.”

But when host Chris Wallace started to press Boehner about specific aspects of the GOP’s counter plan, Boehner avoided any details and refused to say which tax deductions Republicans could cap or eliminate:

WALLACE: What is the biggest proposal you’ put on the table since the election in terms of raising revenue from closing loopholes and deductions?

BOEHNER: You can cap. There are a lot of different ways but you can cap deductions at a percent of income. One way to get there. You can eliminate certain deductions for those, the wealthiest in our country. You could do all of that.

WALLACE: Let me ask you a couple of specifics: would you eliminate or lower the home mortgage deduction?

BOEHNER: There are lots of ways to get out there, there are lots of ways to debate or negotiate with you, but if you can sign the bill into law, I would be happy to.

WALLACE: … Charitable deductions? You are a big charity guy.

BOEHNER: The President has seen a lot of the options from us. There are a lot of them put on the table and I’m hopeful the conversations will continue.

Watch it:

Boehner is avoiding specifics, just as Republicans are recycling Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan — including voucherizing Medicare and significantly cutting Medicaid — which voters largely rejected when they re-elected President Obama. Wallace went on to press Boehner about whether Republicans will allow the economy to go “over the fiscal cliff,” and Boehner acknowledged, “There is a chance.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that Republicans will be to blame if Congress can’t pass a balanced plan to avert the so-called fiscal cliff and insisted that President Obama would not sign a proposal that extends President Bush’s tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans.

Asked, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, if the country would avert the mix of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that are scheduled to go into effect next year, Geithner insisted that it could, but only if Republicans allowed lower taxes on the wealthiest to expire:

CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): Last question, can you promise that we will not go over the cliff?

GEITHNER: No, I can’t promise that. That is a decision that lies in the hands of the Republicans, that are now opposing increases in tax rates, if they recognize the reality, that we cannot afford to extend the tax rates we have the basis for an agreement that would be good for the American people.

WALLACE: And the President bears no responsibility, it is all up to the Republicans?

GEITHNER: Chris, ask yourself this question, why does it make sense for the country to force tax increases on all Americans, because a small group of Republicans want to extend tax rates for 2% of Americans — why does that make any sense? There is no reason why it should happen, we can’t afford the tax rates, that is like the deep tragic lesson of the last decade, we and not afford them and will not get through it, to the end now, without a recognition of the Republicans to that basic reality and that will be the responsible thing to do and my judgment is, they are going to do it because there is no alternative to that.

The Treasury Secretary also laid out the administration’s proposal for averting the cliff, stressing that the mix of increased revenue and entitlement cuts are grounded in proposals the administration included in the President’s FY 2013 budget and offered during the 2011 budget negotiations.

Alongside the $1.6 trillion in tax increases and $80 billion in investments that Obama is offering, he is also agreeing to $600 billion in “reforms and savings, to our health care and other government programs.” The reductions, Geithner said, are on top of “the trillion dollars in spending cuts we agreed with republicans, last year, on defense and a range of other government programs.”

Republicans have demagogued the proposal. They oppose raising marginal tax rates, but are open to increasing revenue by closing loopholes and deductions, so long as those reforms are tied to unspecified “structural” changes to Medicare and Medicaid.