Politics
Obama, Republicans continue trading jabs in fiscal cliff battle
U.S. President Barack Obama (r) with the Speaker of the house John Boehner. PHOTO/File
Amid increasing anxiety that the White House and top Republicans are wasting time as the government slides toward an economy-rattling “fiscal cliff,” administration officials are heading to Capitol Hill for talks with congressional leaders.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and senior White House aide Rob Nabors were to visit separately Thursday with the four leaders of the House and Senate to discuss how to avert a series of tax increases and spending cuts due to begin in January. Republicans complain that the White House is slow-walking the talks and has yet to provide specifics on how President Barack Obama would curb the rapid growth of benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Obama and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, the lead GOP negotiator, spoke on the phone Wednesday, their first conversation in five days. But there’s been little evident progress in negotiations between the two sides.
Boehner’s lieutenants say the White House has been slow to engage.
“We have not seen any good-faith effort on the part of this administration to talk about the real problem that we’re trying to fix,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
Obama is mounting a public campaign to build support and leverage in the negotiations, appearing at the White House with middle-class taxpayers and launching a campaign on Twitter to bolster his position.
“Right now, as we speak, Congress can pass a law that would prevent a tax hike on the first US$250,000 of everybody’s income,” Obama said. “And that means that 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses wouldn’t see their income taxes go up by a single dime.”
