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President Barack Obama on Wednesday suggested that some Republicans had begun to soften their opposition to increased tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, but sharply warned the GOP against looking to tie their budget fight to an upcoming debate over whether to increase the debt ceiling.
Speaking in Washington before a group of corporate leaders, the president suggested some rank-and-file GOP lawmakers might relent in opposing increased income tax rates for the wealthiest earners, meaning Washington is closer to an agreement on the fiscal cliff than principal negotiators' public comments might suggest.
“I think there's a recognition that maybe they can accept some rate increases as long as it's combined with serious entitlement reform and additional spending cuts. And if we can get the leadership on the Republican side to take that framework, to acknowledge that reality, then the numbers actually aren't that far apart,” Obama told members of the Business Roundtable this morning. “Another way of putting this is, we can probably solve this in about a week. It's not that tough. But we need that conceptual breakthrough that says we need to do a balanced plan; that's what's best for the economy; that's what the American people voted for; that's how we're going to get it done.”
Related - First Thoughts: Know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em
Talks toward resolving the fiscal cliff, the combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect on Jan. 1, seem to have hit an impasse after House Republicans and Obama each offered countervailing proposals to address the looming combination.
In the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations, some Republicans are starting to think the way forward is to give in to President Obama's demands. NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss.
The stalemate involves the question of whether tax rates are allowed to increase for the top earners. Republicans say they are willing to ask the wealthy to shoulder a larger share of the tax burden, but only through ending deductions and loopholes in the tax code.
"Now the revenues that we are putting on the table are going to come from, guess who? The rich," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill. "There are ways to limit deductions, close loopholes and have the same people pay more of their money to the federal government without raising tax rates, which we believe will harm our economy."
Obama, in his appearance shortly following Boehner's press conference, argued that closing those deductions would not raise the type of revenue needed to establish the "balanced" approach on which he campaigned. The president also said that the GOP plan would harm philanthropic and charitable giving.
Time Magazine's Nancy Gibbs, New York One's Errol Louis and MSNBC.com's Richard Wolffe join The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd to talk about who would get the blame for going over the fiscal cliff and messaging on the cliff.
As the opposing sides race toward the end-of-December deadline, a New York Times report on Wednesday suggested that Republicans might turn, as a fallback position, to authorizing an extension of current tax rates for all but the wealthiest Americans (this was essentially the president's initial request of lawmakers following the election).
But the report also suggested that Republicans might then use an impending need to authorize more borrowing authority, a point at which the GOP might have more leverage, to extract the kinds of spending cuts and tax and entitlement reforms for which Republican leaders have pushed during this fall's fiscal cliff talks.
Recommended: Boehner's fiscal cliff offer under friendly fire from right
Referencing that report, the president sternly warned Republicans against tying another increase in the debt ceiling to a fiscal fight -- a scenario which would risk reigniting the debt talks during the summer of 2011, during which the government was brought to the brink of default due to partisan differences.
"I have to just tell you, that is a bad strategy for America, it's a bad strategy for our businesses, and it's not a game that I will play," Obama said.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are currently set to depart for their holiday recess, though Boehner said that he would remain in Washington, ready "at any moment" to sit down with Obama and negotiate.
Charles Dharapak / AP
President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks about the fiscal cliff at the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers, in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012.
But Republicans also clamored for another meeting with the president, expressing their frustration that they had not received any plan in response to theirs from Obama.
"We ask the president, sit down with us, be serious about the specifics and spending so we can stop the wasteful spending in Washington and finally address the problem," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
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The problem is the GOP and their policies from 2000 got us into 2 wars unpaid for and tax cuts-unpaid for that drove up the deficit along with No child left behind and the drug prescription bill also unpaid for. Now they want everyone else other than the well-off to pay for it. This is a slap in the face of all Americans since their policies for capitalism sent jobs out of the country for profit, hid money to not pay taxes, invented private armies through defense and Homeland security and again want the profits but let the American people pay the price tag. The President should expose these traitors to the nation and have them arrested for treason for putting us in this devious plan to undermine the Government- this is no accident and shame on those that support this coup on America through lies and power-grabbing.
WTFHAPPENED
That was the first thing this administration did, Rick. How did that work for you.
Big Dave- you sound confused. Obama did not start two unfunded wars and skyrocket government size and deficits. That is the Bush legacy. If you think Obama started two unfunded wars or skyrocketed debt, you need help.
Rick
We're still paying on Vietnam and Korea. We still occupy Korea for that matter. Those wars were both driven by Democratic initiatives. So what is your point? We can't go to war anymore? We can't go to war unless it is started by a Democrat? We can't go to war even when the enemy kills 3000 Americans on our own turf? And NAFTA was lobbied for and signed by Clinton. It's not the wars that have broken our financial back, that protection position is constitutionally driven. It's the entitlements that have come into being in the last 65 years. Entitlements aren't constitutionally mandated.
Sorry that history bothers you, but the democrats VOTED for those wars (including Biden, Reid, Hillary and Kerry). They voted for those wars using the same kind of intelligence that Clinton used to bomb Iraq in 1998. They willingly voted for those wars and are just as responsible for their costs as anyone else.
Obama extended those tax cuts, after campaigning to get rid of them, so you can't blame Bush for that, either. Not that that will stop you.
No, they don't want the "well-off" to pay more than they currently do, since they pay by far the most already. They want spending to be cut because even taxing the "well-off" won't make even the tiniest dent...as 47% continue to contribute NOTHING in federal income tax. Obama just wants a blank check with no opposition. You might also want to ask Barry, while you're at it, why his buddy Imelt at GE sent so many jobs to China, like the entire X-Ray division, since you're so concerned.
I am in favor of going over the cliff. My home mortgage interest isn't enough to declare on my state or federal tax return and I give to charity without looking for a deduction. When my taxes go up in January because we go over the cliff at least I know EVERYONE's taxes are going up and we are all paying our fair share.
Republicons are so desperate that they've granted Full Citizenship Rights to Barack Hussein Obama!
LMAOF!
The “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.”
--- David Stockman Conservative Republican and Reagan's Budget Director
It matters not. The die is cast. I will see you libbies in the streets waiting in line for your soup.
Those of us who planned will be the ones calling the shots. "High" "Right" NICE!
One can only hope that the POS in the WH, has his Allah give him his virgins sooner then later.
They need to fix the alternative minimum tax right NOW !
This is a 2012 issue and unless congress fixes this "patch", 28 million Americans will get hit with this extra AMT tax that were not subject to it previously (and most are not even aware of it !) We're not talking about the "wealthy" Americans here. We're dealing with middle class wage earners (from blue states) that will get sucker punched from left field (no pun intended).
It will turn a $ 2,000 refund into a $ 3,000 balance due.
Politics as usual will have devastating (unintended) consequences on more than 28 million Americans.
How could this Congress be so irresponsible !
Cantor asking Obama to sit down with them, what a laugh. Remember how you turned his last sit down with you into your own personal dog and pony show Eric? I suspect you will NEVER again have the opportunity to sit down with the president of the United States unless its at his feet to shine his shoes. What a butt hole!
OK Obama, where's the leadership on the Democrat side of the issue?????????????? Demanding that it be your way or the highway is ont only stupid, but shows a total lack of the defnition of negotiation. Give you the keys to the "national debt car" ARE YOU NUTS??????????? Here come the new $20Trillion ceiling. The US will be the next GREECE.
I say Impeach the Socialist!
Why, so you can elect a new Republican who protects the rights of the Romneys' to support Communist China and their 24 cent an hour labor force? Get real! What do Republicans even stand for these days?
Jack - The GOP stands for obstructing anything Obama supports, whether that makes any sense or not is irrelevant.
No numbskull we will elect a good sound conservative.
Seems to work for Obama and his buddy Imelt at GE, as he sends entire division of GE (like their X-Ray divisions) over to China.
Time to end bush tax cuts for everybody then.
A Detroit city council member is asking President Obama to bail out the financially troubled city in return for residents’ overwhelmingly supporting his successful re-election bid.
“There ought to be a quid pro quo," said Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, according to My Fox Detroit.
Nearly 75 percent of voters in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, voted for Obama on Nov. 6.
- Councilwoman JoAnn Watson
"After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, D.C., and came home with some bacon," Watson said. "That's what you do," Watson said.
Ahhhhhh......the democrat constituency.
We didn't need her votes, Florida, Ohio Reagan Democrats and the Military in VA delivered the prize.
You think the others didn't vote for him for the same reason? Im sure they did!
Even white males in Ohio, and the serviemen in VA? Damn, America is finally showing signs of energy, optimism and wisdom! The Republican/Tea Party Alliance is road kill, waiting for buzzards toleave the stage.
Go look at the voting maps and it will show you where his votes came from.
Whatever, he did it without ACORN. So what is your sour loser excuse now. Accept it, America chose him over your plastic charicature M.R. by over 5 million votes and a 332 electoral votes, something W never even approached
it's called freebies for the lazy.
Up to this point both sides have been acting more immature than some of the comments on this blog. Obama can win the tax battle by simply doing nothing and the Republicans can at least get a partial win by supporting the middle class tax cut. I am a firm fiscal conservative but sometimes in street fights and politics, discretion is the better part of valor, and as they say, if you walk away you can live to fight another day. Let's get this done and move on.
The first paragraph says it all:
Barry says, "yeah, just take my side and let me keep spending, don't you dare say anything else."
Yup, that's "negotiating" all right!
The President cannot spend any money without House approval. The deficit has actually gone down every year under Obama, compared with Bush. This canard that President Obama is a big spender is without merit.
As for President Obama's proposals for cutting spending and raising revenue, they are pretty much what he campaigned and ran on. The people are behind it. Elections have consequences. I assume you noticed that the Republicans' proposal includes $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, the exact amount of spending cuts in the "fiscal cliff". The only difference is that Republicans want to cut from social programs and entitlements, and not defense.
Why don't Republicans want to raise taxes upon the rich, when historically, our nation always does better when they pay their fair share? Faulty genes? Failure to evolve? Too many anti-biotics in their food supply? Graduated from Heritage University and coddled by Rush Limbaugh? What could go wrong there?
Raising the taxes is not the main problem, Jack; the GOP is wondering why reduced spending is never mentioned by Obama.
Given that the Bush era tax RATE cuts will EXPIRE on Dec. 31, isn't that (softened opposition) like a condemned man giving ground on his lunch menu for the day after his execution?
There should be entitlement cuts, however, those cuts should be to those who feel they are entitled to continued entitlements like excessive defense spending and "corporate welfare", the poor and middle class have carried the burden long enough while the wealthy continue to prosper with unfair tax loopholes, many of which have been enacted solely to protect the wealthy from paying a fair percentage while their profits grow and the disparity increases between profits and wages.
To call social security an entitlement is no different than referring to personal savings accounts entitlements, that is my damn cash that I paid into social security, not yours or the governments, the sooner that sinks into the republicans think heads the better.
I urge the President to hold firm, no reduction of entitlements save the corporate welfare, increase the tax rates on the 2%, or it is over the cliff we go. We should not negotiate with domestic terrorist, that is exactly what the republican party has become.
We should also break (crush irreparably) the legs of those republicans who voted against the treaty for the disabled so they can spend the rest of their lives in wheel chairs.
This
man (Boehner/Cantor) and others that signed this pledge are agents against the
United States Government as stated in the Constitution. They have for over
decades systematically undermined the economic stability of the nation with
out-sourcing, unfair tax loop-holes, illegal wars, social unrest,
gerrymandering states and lying to the American people for political gains. The
Justice Department needs to arrest these people from the list they signed and
openly bragged about it for years. This is no accident, these are acts of
treason and punishable through the full extent of the law as the forefathers
wrote. The truth is out.
WTFHAPPENED
Forbes Magazine, a scion of Capitalism, names President Obama the most powerful man in the world. May God bless our President and his lovely family
Oh please! He is a card toting socialist.
Despite that, we Americans and God chose him over your Brooks Brothers charicature.
I've been wondering how long it would take a mental mediocrity mathematically like Barak Obama to realize that he's go his tit in the proverbial wringer. Calculating interest rates when all those zeroes are involved is damned difficult even for someone who's really bright, but that's not an IQ of a 125. That might get you through law school, but not much further. Even stupider, though, are the people who believe that Obama's current bungling of the numbers - to say nothing of the economics - the constituency that believes this bar fight in the local saloon to cover for the bank being robbed down the street is the last such phony Donnybrook. The next couple Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the Jesse James liberals will "pull" will be the real crushers. They'll tax everything that takes up space. "Value added" or the like (a liberal just has to have a euphemistic term for the crime he's committing or about to commit) will eradicate middle America - all those small business and wage-earning "middle class" people politicians like Barak have been saving for the last sixty years.
Face it folks, the U.S. is about to become another Mexico (which, of course, will please hell out of all the Mexicans who came here to get away from Mexico). And that will be courtesy of all the parasite "poor" who have learned that they can vote themselves a living.
And the fact that our economy has been doing better after Obama's stimulus plan dug us out of the ditch deserves no credit?
You just think it is doing better by artificially lowered interest rates and cheap money for the banks. All the stimulus did was put us further in the hole!
joe mama-2591591........you said:
Tell that to the communities whose infrastructure was expanded and/or enhanced by those stimulus dollars.
You folks need to understand that the U.S. Federal Government is NOT like a family. Its budgeting is far different and, unlike a family, it can and does issue IOU's as needed in many forms. One of those forms are the greenbacks in your wallet.
The consequence of issuing too many IOU's is inflation. Fortunately, inflation has been quite low during the Obama administration. But, you don't assign credit for that, do you?
BTW----is your screen name intended to be a reference to Ebonics?
Like in 2010 when the dems lost the house after passing Obamacare. Wait until Obamacare taxes come, the dems will be screwed in 2014.
gbob2......you said:
Isn't that what you folks said about 2012?
We knew we would take a hit in 2010. It was both worth it and part of our calculations. Health Care Reform is here to stay !
Obama just wants a license to over spend- he will leave office with u having 20 trillion of debt- he will leave u broke empowering his muslim brotherhood- theory or fact- time will tell- have fun across the pond- still like your football or is that soccer
I guess that makes Michelle most powerful American woman. Watch out Hillary and Elizabeth Warren
This battle is between Grover Norquist and the American voters. How did Grover Norquist black mail a lot of these House republicans, is something should be fully investigated. Something is fishy when we have politicians solely supporting "one" American and not the rest of the American people. (Grover's words: Vote my way or you won't be re-elected.) DUH!!!!
Most elite rich people are good honest people. A few play a evil game with their money. Compare their ways. Koch Brother's and the casino multi-billionaire: To their employees: Vote my way or you might not have a job if you don't. Grover to the Republican House: Vote my way or you won't be re-elected. I see a trend from their evil game.
"How did Grover Norquist black mail a lot of these House republicans, is something should be fully investigated"
No need to investigate, Grover openly explains how he does it. He is backed by huge money from unidentified donors. He is not required to disclose the donors, but I'll bet most folks can figure out who they are. Any republican who pisses off Grover finds himself in his next reelection primary race facing a tea-party parrot backed by huge money from Grover and other similar extreme right-wing groups. The extreme conservative movement, backed by huge corporate and billionaire money is systematically gunning down moderate republicans.
President Lincoln said it best. Beware of a few rich people corrupting our Congress.
Why should GOP cave? Should the Clinton tax rates go into law (about 3 times the revenue as just the tax on the rich) then to pass legisation reducing these taxes Congress will have to reduce spending by a reciprocal amount somewhere else. This is to the GOP's advantage on spending cuts. If Obama doesn't cave on this issue it means he has no real interest in the middle class tax cuts because he will never agree on the spending cuts needed to pass legislation to invoke them again once they are gone.
Don't do it. Tell him to go F himself. Let his minion pay higher taxes too.