| Obama and Boehner Still Far Apart On Fiscal Cliff Deal |
| Dec-17-2012 |
| Keywords: obama, boehner, fiscal cliff, meet |
In a brief meeting at the White House on Monday, President Obama and House Speaker Boehner met on the fiscal cliff, but like their previous meetings the two men walked away with little accomplished.
In the 45 minute meeting, the two attempted to iron issues preventing a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff now just over two weeks from jeopardizing the U.S. economy.
Seen by some as a possible breakthrough, the Speaker last week offered to raise taxes on those earning $1,000,000 a year. However, that still isn't, in the White House's opinion, good enough.
The debt ceiling issue is still a sticking point, not just between Boehner and Obama but also between Boehner and his fellow Republicans.
Boehner's office tried to assure conservatives over the weekend that he's not backing off his debt ceiling demands. That reassurance was required following a story in The Washington Post that he offered to push off any battle over the debt ceiling for another year.
Boehner contends that story isn't true, and that any increase in the debt ceiling will be contingent on spending cuts greater than the requested increase in the debt ceiling.
Boehner and other Republicans have so far refused Obama's demand that he be given the authority to raise the debt ceiling whenever he wants.
Instead, Republicans are apparently considering a one-time increase in the debt limit tied to a fiscal cliff deal.
Boehner is asking for $1 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years from government benefit programs like Medicare, the federal health care program for the elderly. Those cuts would defer most of a painful set of across-the-board spending cuts set to slash many domestic programs and the defense budget by 8-9 percent, starting in January.
On the revenue side, Boehner's offer calls for about $450 billion in revenue from increasing the top rate on million-dollar-plus income from 35 percent to the Clinton-era rate of 39.6 percent. The additional revenue required to meet Boehner's $1 trillion target would be collected through a rewrite of the tax code next year and by slowing the inflation adjustments made to tax brackets.
Read more about the 'fiscal cliff' impasse on FoxNews.com |
|
|
Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 10:00 PM Email to a friend |
| < Back to Today's Issues |
|
 |
|
|
|
