Politics
“Fiscal Cliff”: What Obama and Boehner stand for
Obama wants several billion dollars in infrastructure spending to goose the economy and to extend expiring unemployment benefits. He also wants the government’s authority to borrow money extended for two more years — until after the 2014 congressional elections — with Congress having little more than symbolic opportunities to block it, a year longer than Boehner has offered.
Even so, the numbers being proposed by Obama and Boehner are so close, and the political risks both men have taken on taxes and Social Security benefits are so stark, that many consider it almost unthinkable that they would not eventually complete a deal.
“Having come out of their trenches, they either have to shake hands or get shot, maybe by their own troops,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the nonpartisan Concord Coalition, an anti-deficit group.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
