-GOP Made ‘Serious Offer’ Warns Obama is ‘Slow Walking’ Budget Talks
-Rep. Pelosi: Democrats Already Accepted $1.6 Trillion in Spending Cuts
By John Shaw
WASHINGTON (MNI) – House Speaker John Boehner went to the House floor
Monday and expressed clear but restrained frustration with President Barack
Obama for the slow progress in resolving the fiscal cliff impasse.
Boehner, in his first public remarks since his meeting with Obama Sunday,
called the private session “a nice meeting, it was cordial.”
But he said once again that the talks cannot progress until Obama offers
specific spending cuts.
“We’re still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the
President is willing to make as part of the ‘balanced approach’ he promised the
American people,” Boehner said in a brief statement on the floor.
The Speaker said the GOP made a “serious offer to avert the fiscal cliff”
last week but still hasn’t received a specific response from Obama.
“Where are the president’s spending cuts?,” he asked.
Boehner said he is still “hopeful” an agreement can be reached but accused
Obama of “slow walking” the fiscal talks.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi went to the House floor just after
Boehner and renewed her call for House GOP leaders to allow a vote soon on a
bill the Senate has passed that would extend middle class tax cuts.
Pelosi said Obama and congressional Democrats already have agreed to more
than $1.6 trillion in spending cuts in the 2011 debt ceiling accord and secured
major entitlement savings in the 2010 health care act.
Now it is time for Republicans to offer a specific package of revenue
increases, she said.
“Where are the revenues,” she said.
Two weeks ago, Obama offered a proposal that calls for $1.6 trillion in
additional revenues, $600 billion in entitlement savings and $50 billion for new
infrastructure spending.
The administration plan also calls for the extension of Bush era tax cuts
for the first $250,000 of income a year, extension of the two percentage point
payroll tax reduction first approved in 2010, renewal of unemployment insurance
benefits, and a housing refinance provision to help homeowners who are
underwater in their mortgages.
The administration is recommending a revised procedure for the debt ceiling
in which Congress no longer would have to affirmatively approve a debt hike.
Instead, Congress would be able to block debt ceiling increases by passing
motions of disapproval, but these would take two-thirds majorities in both
chambers. Last week,
Last week, House Republicans countered with a plan that calls for $1.4
trillion in spending cuts and $800 billion in additional revenues through tax
reform.
The spending savings include $600 billion from health care entitlements,
$300 billion from other entitlements, $200 billion by using the chained CPI for
indexing benefit programs and $300 billion in additional discretionary savings.
Boehner has said he remains convinced that it is possible to raise $800
billion in revenue by closing loopholes and limiting deductions, adding that the
bulk of these revenues would come from upper income people.
–MNI Washington Bureau; tel: +1 202-371-2121; email: jshaw@mni-news.com
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