WASHINGTON (AP) — In a test of divided
government, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner sought
an elusive
compromise Tuesday to prevent economy-damaging year-end tax
increases for the middle class, speaking by phone after a secretive
exchange of proposals.
Details were sparse and evidence of significant progress scarcer still, although officials said the president had offered
to reduce his initial demand for $1.6 trillion in higher tax revenue over a decade to $1.4 trillion.
There was no indication he was relenting on his insistence — strongly opposed by most Republicans — that tax rates rise at
upper incomes.
Boehner sounded unimpressed in remarks on the House floor at midday, well before he and the president talked by phone about
attempts to avert a "fiscal cliff," across-the-board tax increases and cuts in defense and domestic programs that threaten
to send the economy into recession.
"The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff," he said, declaring
that Obama had yet to identify specific cuts to government benefit programs that the president would support as part of an
agreement that also would raise federal tax revenue.
In rebuttal, the White House swiftly detailed numerous proposals Obama has made to cut spending, including recommendations
to cull $340 million from Medicare over a decade and an additional $250 billion from other government benefit programs.
The House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, challenged Boehner to allow a vote on the president's proposal
to extend most expiring tax cuts while letting them lapse at higher incomes.
She predicted it would gain "overwhelming approval," even in the GOP-controlled House.
Boehner's office took the step - unusual in
secretive talks - of announcing that Republicans "sent the White House a
counter-offer
that would achieve tax and entitlement reform to solve our looming
debt crisis and create more American jobs."
Both sides say they want a deal to prevent damage to the economy, but that stated commitment has been accompanied by a fierce
battle to gain the political high ground in negotiations — and the occasional comment that one side or the other would be
willing to let the deadline pass without a deal unless it got acceptable terms.
Republicans acknowledge that Obama has an advantage in one respect, citing his re-election last month after a race in which
he made higher taxes on the wealthy a centerpiece of his campaign.
At the same time, Republicans hold powerful
leverage of their own, the certainty that by spring the president will
be forced
to ask Congress to raise the government's borrowing authority. It
was just such a threat that previously allowed them to extract
$1 trillion in spending cuts from the White House and Democratic
lawmakers, a situation that Obama has vowed he won't let
happen again.
In his noontime remarks on the House floor, Boehner said, "Let's be honest. We're broke. The plan we offered is consistent
with the president's call for a balanced approach."
"We're still waiting for the White House" to do the same," added the Ohio Republican.
GOP senators across the Capitol soon echoed his remarks.
"You have to ask the question, Is the president obsessed with raising taxes?" said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member
of the GOP leadership.
Referring to the president's occasional outside-the-Beltway trips to build public support for his position, Thune said Obama
was "doing a victory lap" after the campaign.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell
said GOP lawmakers are determined to overhaul benefit programs so they
can "meet
the demographics of the country." He recently said Republicans
want to curtail annual cost-of-living benefits for Social Security
and other government benefits, as well as raise the age of
eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 67 beginning at some point
in the future.
"The president seems to think that if all he
talks about are taxes, and that's all reporters write about, somehow
the rest
of us will magically forget that government spending is completely
out of control and that he himself has been insisting on
balance," McConnell said on the Senate floor.
He highlighted several government programs as examples of what he said was wasteful spending.
"A few weeks ago, Senator (Tom) Coburn
issued a study that showed taxpayers are funding Moroccan pottery
classes, promoting
shampoo and other beauty products for cats and dogs and a video
game that allows them to relive prom night," McConnell said.
"Get this: Taxpayers also just spent $325,000 on a robotic
squirrel named RoboSquirrel."
The two sides had presented rival initial offers in the cliff negotiations.
Obama's plan would raise $1.6 trillion in revenue over 10 years, in part by raising tax rates on incomes over $200,000 for
individuals and $250,000 for couples. He has recommended $400 billion in spending cuts over a decade.
He also is seeking extension of the Social
Security payroll tax cut due to expire on Jan. 1, a continuation in
long-term unemployment
benefits and steps to help hard-pressed homeowners and doctors who
treat Medicare patients.
The White House summary noted that Obama last year signed legislation to cut more than $1 trillion from government programs
over a decade, and was proposing $600 billion in additional savings from benefit programs.
It also noted that the health care law that Obama signed into law showed savings of $100 billion. Much or all of that funding
came from Medicare, even though Obama's aides insisted during his successful campaign for re-election that he had not made
any cuts in that program.
Boehner's plan, in addition to calling for
$800 billion in new revenue, envisions $600 billion in savings over a
decade from
Medicare, Medicaid and other government health programs as well as
$300 billion from other benefit programs and another $300
billion from other domestic programs.
It would trim annual increases in Social Security payments to beneficiaries, and it calls for gradually raising the eligibility
age for Medicare from 65 to 67, beginning in a decade.