Politics
Obama, Boehner meet privately to discuss ‘fiscal cliff’
“It’s not waving a white flag to recognize political reality,” Cole said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
But such ideas face an uphill battle. Many House Republicans say they wouldn’t vote for tax rate hikes under any circumstances. And GOP leadership could lose leverage in the negotiations if it raises the rate on upper-income earners without getting anything substantial in return like entitlement reform.
Democratic leaders have suggested they are unwilling to tackle entitlement spending in the three weeks left before the fiscal cliff is triggered.
“I just don’t think we can do it in a matter of days here before the end of the year,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said of Medicare reform specifically, in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We need to address that in a thoughtful way through the committee structure after the first of the year,” Durbin added.
The “fiscal cliff” refers to rate increases that would affect every worker who pays federal taxes, as well as spending cuts that would begin to bite defense and domestic programs alike. Economists say the combination carries the risk of a new recession, at a time the economy is still struggling to recover fully from the worst slowdown in decades.
Obama’s plan would raise US$1.6 trillion in revenue over 10 years, partly by letting decade-old tax cuts on the country’s highest earners expire at the end of the year. He would continue those Bush-era tax cuts for everyone except individuals earning more than US$200,000 and couples making more than US$250,000. The highest rates on top-paid Americans would rise from 33 percent and 35 percent to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively.
Boehner has offered US$800 billion in new revenues to be raised by reducing or eliminating unspecified tax breaks on upper-income earners. The Republican plan also would cut spending by US$1.4 trillion, including by trimming annual increases in Social Security payments and raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
