By Susan Davis and Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - House Speaker John Boehner flatly rejected a $4 trillion
Obama administration plan to avoid going over the fiscal cliff that was
presented by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday in a
private meeting.
Publicly, Boehner said he is "disappointed" with
the offer, but he offered no details. Privately, three Republican
congressional aides familiar with the president's offer cast it as an
"outrageous" proposal that surprised the speaker and has set back
negotiations on how to avoid the "fiscal cliff" coming at the end of the
year, when all of the Bush-era tax rates expire and the first of $1.2
trillion in spending cuts over 10 years are triggered.
The combined effect of the two - without action by Washington - threaten to push the U.S economy back into a recession.
White
House spokeswoman Amy Brundage countered that GOP lawmakers are "the
only thing preventing us from reaching a deal that averts the fiscal
cliff" and a tax hike for most Americans.
"The President has
already signed into law over $1 trillion in spending cuts and we remain
willing to do tough things to compromise, and it's time for Republicans
in Washington to join the chorus of other voices...who support a balanced
approach that asks more from the wealthiest Americans," Brundage said.
Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also offered a different take
Thursday on his private meeting with Geithner, which he described as
"nice" and agreeable. "Democrats are on the same page," he said.
Obama and Boehner are viewed as the chief negotiators for their parties on reaching a deal.
The
GOP aides, who spoke on background because they are not authorized to
speak on the record, described the administration's proposal as a
non-starter that was not reflective of the conversations that have been
ongoing since congressional leaders had their one and only meeting with
President Obama two weeks ago. Their message was clear: Thursday was a
step back to solving the "fiscal cliff."
The $4 trillion package
includes a number of requests that stand all but no chance of passage in
the GOP-controlled House, because Republicans continue to oppose
raising individual tax rates, and the package includes spending cuts
that are considered insignificant to Republicans who want more
concessions on spending for entitlement programs like Medicare and
Medicaid.
The president's proposal includes a two-stage process
that requests a legislative package before the end of the year that
includes key provisions such as:
- $1.6 trillion in
revenues, including $960 billion from raising the top marginal rates on
wealthy Americans as well as higher capital gains and dividends and an
additional $600 billion from unspecified revenue sources.
- An extension of the Social Security payroll tax break and unemployment insurance benefits.
- One-year deferral of "sequestration," the $1.2 trillion spending cuts over 10 years.
- A multiyear stimulus package with at least $50 billion for the 2013 fiscal year.
- A White House proposal to refinance underwater mortgages.
- A permanent increase in the debt limit that would change current law, which requires congressional approval.
The
second stage of the proposal calls for a tax overhaul next year that
would be consistent with the president's request for $1.6 trillion in
additional revenue, as well as a promise to support $400 billion in
Medicare and other entitlements that are outlined in Obama's budget.
Republicans
dispute the administration's claim of $4 trillion in deficit reduction
because it assumes the $1 trillion in savings already achieved in a
previous 2011 budget agreement between the White House and Congress. The
administration also counts as savings provisions that Republicans
consider budget gimmicks, such as the money saved from drawing down war
efforts abroad.
The proposal is largely consistent with Obama's
budget, which failed to pass Congress. One of the aides said the offer
was as unrealistic as Republicans presenting Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's
budget, which includes a plan to rework the entire Medicare system, and
has been soundly rejected by Democrats.
"If on the first day of
this we would have said, 'Our offer is the Ryan budget,' you guys would
have laughed at us. You would have laughed at us, and reported that the
offer was laughable. This is the equivalent of that," the aide said.
The
aides said there are no meetings with the president scheduled. It is
undecided whether Boehner will offer a counter-proposal.
As
broader negotiations continue, Reid has proposed to pass an extension of
the Bush-era tax cuts that affect 98% of American households to assuage
concerns that middle-class earners will see a tax hike in their first
2013 paycheck unless Washington acts. "If it happens, it'll be under the
leadership of the speaker of the House of Representatives, John
Boehner," Reid said.
Republicans want to couple any revenue hikes with spending cuts, and they continue to oppose any increases in individual rates.
Complicating
the negotiations is a further disagreement over whether any deal should
include an increase in the debt ceiling, which needs congressional
approval. The $16.4 trillion borrowing limit is expected to hit in
mid-February, and Obama has said he wants to head off another painful
fight with Congress that threatens to rattle markets.
The
president's proposal to circumvent congressional approval to lift the
debt ceiling is one of the more unacceptable provisions for Boehner, who
continues to maintain his position that any increase in the debt
ceiling must be paired dollar-for-dollar with spending cuts. He views
those cuts as separate from the spending cuts he is seeking in the
fiscal cliff deal.
"I continue to believe that any increase in
the debt limit has to be accompanied by spending reductions that meet or
exceed it," he reiterated Thursday.
Reid made clear that the debt limit had to be part of a fiscal cliff
agreement. "There will be an agreement on the debt ceiling, or there
will be no agreement," he said.
Earlier in the afternoon, before
the House aides released details of the administration's proposal, White
House spokesman Jay Carney pushed back against Boehner's suggestion
that any increase in the debt limit would have to be matched by further
spending cuts.
"Asking that a political price be paid in order for
Congress to do its job to ensure the United States of America pays its
bills and does not default on its bills is deeply irresponsible," Carney
said.
The speaker's insistence on cuts echoed the rhetoric of
last year's standoff on the debt limit that ultimately led to the
current standoff over automatic spending cuts set to be triggered on
Jan. 1, Carney said.
"As I told the president a couple of weeks
ago," Boehner said, "there's a lot of things I've wanted in my life, but
almost all of them had a price tag attached to them."
Carney warned that the repeat of such talk was also politically dangerous for the GOP.
"It
would be a terrible mistake," Carney said. "The harm done was done
mostly to the American middle class -- we had our economy downgraded, we
had consumer confidence plunge, all because of this brinksmanship that
is entirely inappropriate. We hope we won't see that again."