WASHINGTON (AP)—Despite an intensifying pace, little progress is being reported in talks on averting automatic spending cuts and tax increases that economists fear could send the U.S. economy off a fiscal cliff.
House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama spoke on the phone Tuesday, a day after the president offered to reduce his initial demand for $1.6 trillion in higher tax revenue over a decade to $1.4 trillion. But Obama continued to insist that much of the revenue come from raising top tax rates on the wealthy.
Boehner countered later Tuesday with another offer that aides to the Ohio Republican said stuck close to a document delivered to the White House a week ago. A top White House aide, Rob Nabors, came to the Capitol to respond.
Leading lawmakers expressed pessimism that a deal was close, despite increasing angst about a December 31 deadline to stop the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts and separate across-the-board spending cuts that are the result of Washington’s failure to complete a deficit-reduction deal last year.
“I think it’s getting worse, not better,” House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said.
The Boehner camp again said it’s up to the White House to proffer additional spending cuts to programs like Medicare. The White House countered that Republicans still need to cave on raising tax rates for the rich.
“Where are the president’s spending cuts?” Boehner said on the House floor. “The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff.”
In rebuttal, the White House swiftly detailed numerous proposals Obama has made to cut spending, including recommendations to cull $340 billion from Medicare over a decade and an additional $250 billion from other government benefit programs.
Obama remains determined that tax rates rise on family income exceeding $250,000, a move Republicans say would strike many small businesses that are engines of new jobs and file as individuals when paying their taxes.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that a bipartisan deal to avert a fiscal cliff is more likely if Democrats and Republicans don’t try to over-reach on spending cuts.
The California Democrat, appearing on “CBS This Morning,” said Congress and the White House need to agree on a provisional plan for taxes and spending. “Let’s do something now,” she said.
Pelosi says Democrats want to ensure that senior citizens aren’t harmed, and she called Boehner a “well-intentioned” person. But she also said the GOP was pushing too hard on a Medicare overhaul, asking, “Is it just a trophy that the Republicans want to take home?”
“Get it done,” she said, “and make corrections and expansions on it next year.”