WASHINGTON — President Obama and Republican leaders yesterday pushed each other closer toward the edge of the fiscal cliff in a spat over taxes and spending.
“This is not a game . . . The White House has to get serious,” declared House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) after meeting at the Capitol with Obama’s chief fiscal cliff negotiator, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
“No substantive progress has been made,” he said. “Despite claims that the president supports a balanced approach, the Democrats have yet to get serious about real spending cuts.”
He blasted Obama for continuing to be a big spender while relentlessly pushing for tax hikes on Americans making more than $250,000 a year.
The tax increases for the rich would net about $850 billion over 10 years, while Obama’s budgets run more than a $1 trillion deficit every year.
The talks to avoid the fiscal cliff — when massive tax hikes hit nearly every American and deep government-spending cuts automatically take effect Jan. 1 — had ground to a halt.
Obama and Congress created the fiscal cliff as part of a budget deal in August 2011, when both sides were unable to come up with a plan to tackle the national debt — now more than $16 trillion.
After a separate meeting with Geithner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the talks had moved “one step closer to the fiscal cliff.”
“It’s well past time for the administration to get serious about solving the problems created by years of trillion-dollar deficits and kicking the can down the road,” said the Kentucky Republican.
Obama held firm.
“There can be no deal without rates on top earners going up,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
“This should not be news to anyone who was not in a coma during campaign season,” he said, underscoring that Obama campaigned on that demand for more than a year.
Negotiations are stuck on Republican opposition to higher taxes for the rich and Obama’s opposition to spending cuts, namely reductions to budget-busting entitlements such as Medicare.
Some Republicans are caving in to Obama’s tax demands. But GOP leaders insist increased tax revenue come from closing loopholes and deductions, not from higher tax rates.