Boehner on Fiscal Cliff: ‘White House Has to Get Serious’
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Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Republicans and Democrats may be privately working to avoid the fiscal cliff, but in public they’re digging into opposing positions on the all-important issue of tax rates for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. And leaders from both parties say they want a “serious proposal” from the other side.
“No substantive progress has been made on the fiscal cliff negotiations,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters after a short phone conversation with President Obama Wednesday night and a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Thursday morning.
“The White House has to get serious,” he said, pointing out that Republicans are willing to raise more government revenue, but not by raising tax rates on the wealthy. That has become a sticking point in the negotiations as President Obama and Democrats have insisted that Bush-era tax cuts be extended for all but the wealthiest two percent of Americans as part of a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” cocktail of expiring tax measures and spending cuts set to kick in Jan. 1.
After his meeting with Geithner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said “Democrats are all of the same page.”
“For two weeks we have been waiting for a serious offer from Republicans. …we need a proposal from them,” he continued.
Earlier Thursday, Reid held up the examples of House Republicans like Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Tim Scott of South Carolina, who in recent days have signaled that there might be a small group of House Republicans willing to agree to a short-term tax hike on the wealthy in order avoid the fiscal cliff.
“Prominent republicans are calling on Speaker Boehner to end the suspense for millions of these American families,” Reid said. “I would bet a lot of his Republicans would vote for it would bet a majority of his republicans would vote for it.”
The House of Representatives most recently voted down the Senate plan on Aug. 1, when 236 Republicans and 10 Democrats voted against raising the rates on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
But Reid seized on the two recent House Republicans’ comments and said that House Speaker John Boehner should listen to the “advice of reasonable members of their own caucus,” who have spoken out in favor of the Senate bills in order to end the standoff.
Boehner said Wednesday that he disagrees with Cole after the Oklahoma congressman told colleagues to give in on tax rates this year in order to avoid the fiscal cliff, the cocktail of tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in Jan. 1. Cole said Republicans could work on larger tax reform next year.
“I told Tom earlier in our conference meeting that I disagreed with him,” Boehner said Wednesday when asked Cole’s proposal is worthy of consideration. “The goal here is to grow the economy and control spending. You’re not going to grow the economy if you raise tax rates on the top [two percent]. It’ll hurt small businesses, it’ll hurt our economy. That’s why this is not the right approach.”
Leaders of both parties are set to meet separately Thursday with Geithner and the White House chief negotiator Rob Nabors. That meeting clearly did not satisfy Boehner. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in advance of his meeting, said everything the White House has put down on the table so far has been “counterproductive,” and he hopes that Secretary Geithner brings “a specific plan from the president” with him Thursday.
“The only reason Democrats are insisting on raising rates is because raising rates on the so-called rich is the holy grail of liberalism,” McConnell said on the floor of the Senate Thusrday morning, “Their aim isn’t job creation. They’re interested in wealth destruction. Not job creation, but wealth destruction.”
McConnell concluded by quipping that the “the president needs to realize that he wasn’t elected president of the hard left of the Democratic party, he was elected president of the United States.
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