GOP: Debt vote is 'shared sacrifice'

Obama is growing frustrated with Cantor's (left) and Boehner's bargaining stance. | AP Photos By: David Rogers July 11, 2011 07:49 PM EDT

Republicans dug in deeper against adding tax revenues to any deficit reduction package Monday, suggesting that just voting for a debt ceiling increase qualifies as “shared sacrifice” and even taunting President Barack Obama by saying that if he feels compelled to pay more taxes, “he can write a check anytime he wants.” That last remark came from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who has pushed past Speaker John Boehner as the public spokesman for the House GOP in recent days while also reasserting himself in negotiating sessions on the debt issue at the White House. Cantor said it was “laughable” to suggest that Republicans aren’t prepared to deal with the nation’s deficit and insisted the real distinction is: “We don’t want to go and raise taxes on people in a tough economy. That is what it comes down to right now. The president and his party do.” The tone was more polite at an afternoon White House negotiating session, where Cantor used color-coded charts to present his vision of how to get almost all the way to $2.4 trillion in 10-year savings without added taxes. But that’s still far less than what Obama is seeking, and Cantor didn’t hide the fact — yellow marked caution — that he was pushing the envelope beyond what spending cuts had been agreed to in prior talks with Democrats and Vice President Joe Biden. Talks are to resume Tuesday, and Obama said he will keep calling congressional leaders back each day until an answer is found. But the president’s frustration was apparent: “I do not see a path to a deal if they don’t budge, period,” Obama said at a morning press conference. And he risks seeing the whole process unravel as allies like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid show increasing impatience with the GOP’s stand. At a White House meeting Sunday night, Reid exploded at one point, angrily swearing that Republicans were now rejecting any peace dividend from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but had counted more than $1 trillion for this purpose in their own budget. And when Cantor spelled out his list of savings Monday, Reid bluntly predicted that the package would never have the support needed to pass the Senate. Obama himself walked Cantor back to about $1.7 trillion — the number used by the White House to better estimate what had been agreed to in the Biden talks. And Reid has argued that before further savings are agreed to at the expense of Medicare or Medicaid, the GOP must add revenues to the mix to get to the $2.4 trillion target. Among the listed savings which appear to be new on the Cantor sheets are up to $53 billion from proposed reforms in supplemental Medigap insurance policies, which are often criticized for encouraging an overuse of Medicare at the expense of taxpayers. And in the case of Pell Grants for low-income college students, Cantor’s estimate shows a huge range of savings from $10 billion to $56 billion — a fivefold increase. In a moment of humor, the president suggested Cantor’s detailed presentation had a page missing—on revenues. In fact, the Biden group had also discussed potential tax loophole closings with Cantor, who has said he might go along if the tax savings were used to finance other tax breaks. Biden jumped into the back-and-forth at this juncture, and it appeared to some that the president was reminding Cantor of these past revenue talks—perhaps to tweak the majority leader in front of the speaker.  The $2.4 trillion target represents the dollar-for-dollar equivalent of the estimated $2.4 trillion debt ceiling increase needed next month to guarantee the Treasury has sufficient borrowing authority to manage past the 2012 elections. Obama again Monday rejected the notion of a short-term fix, and until this past weekend he had hoped Boehner would join him behind a much larger $4 trillion deficit reduction package that would include substantial savings — but also new tax revenues. “It’s not going to get easier,” the president said. “It’s going to get harder. So we might as well do it now — pull off the Band-Aid. Eat our peas. Now is the time to do it. If not now, when?”  “I’m prepared to do it. I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done, and I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing if they mean what they say, that this is important.” Boehner himself has the air of a man beaten down, after giving up on the larger $4 trillion deal. But unlike Cantor, the speaker avoided taking any personal shot at Obama and still spoke favorably of the need for tax reform, a key element in that proposal. “There was a big conversation under way about revenues,” Boehner told reporters. “Revenues in the context of tax reform, lowering rates, broadening the base, which would encourage more economic activity and real growth in our economy that would result in additional revenues to the federal government.”  “There is, in fact, a way to do this.”  Indeed, coupling tax reform with a package of savings may yet be one path to restore momentum behind the negotiations.  Economist Mark Zandi told POLITICO that tax reform is “the most logical approach to bridge the gap between the two, and it would be a significant plus for the economy.” And Cantor himself has signaled that he would be more accepting of a reform deal — if the new revenues assumed for deficit reduction came solely from this resulting economic growth.  Nothing on the scale of the $4 trillion package seems possible, and Boehner will be shy of jumping back in. But Obama was clearly prepared to make significant spending concessions as part of his talks with the speaker.  Democrats confirmed that even options like slowly raising the eligibility age for Medicare were on the table — something that would have been taboo before enactment of health care reform last year. And the president saved part of Monday’s press conference to talk to progressives in his party who have been critical of his willingness to make concessions on core Democratic priorities.  “If you look at the numbers, then Medicare in particular will run out of money, and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up,” Obama said. “I mean, it’s not an option for us to just sit by and do nothing. And if you’re a progressive who cares about the integrity of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and believes that it is part of what makes our country great, … then we have an obligation to make sure that we make those changes that are required to make it sustainable over the long term.”  “So, yeah, we’re going to have a sales job; this is not pleasant. It is hard to persuade people to do hard stuff that entails trimming benefits and increasing revenues. But the reason we’ve got a problem right now is people keep on avoiding hard things, and I think now is the time for us to go ahead and take it on.”