(Reuters/Larry Downing)
So it turns out John Boehner was bluffing: two days after President Obama offered to negotiate a $4 trillion deficit reduction deal, Boehner has folded his cards and gotten up from the table. The reason: he's scared to raise taxes on the wealthy.
New York Times:
Citing differences over tax revenues, House Speaker John A. Boehner said on Saturday night that he would pull back from joint efforts with President Obama to reach a sweeping $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan tied to a proposal to increase the federal debt limit.
Washington Post:
House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to reach a comprehensive debt-reduction deal worth more than $4 trillion in savings, telling President Obama that a midsize package was the only politically possible alternative to avoid a first-ever default on the nation’s mounting national debt.
Boehner is going to try to pretend he hasn't caved, but at this point he's got absolutely no leverage. For months, he's said Republicans would only agree to lift the debt ceiling if Democrats were willing to agree to massive deficit reduction. Yet the minute Democrats agreed to work out a massive deficit reduction deal, he completely reversed his position: it turns out he's not willing to ask for sacrifice from the people who can afford it most.
Now he says he wants to cut $2 trillion, doing it on the backs of people who can afford it the least. But he's already said no to working out a big deficit deal. He can't possibly expect to get everything he wants without giving up anything in return. And the White House, in a statement from Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, is making it clear that Boehner's approach isn't an option.
“The President believes that solving our fiscal problems is an economic imperative. But in order to do that, we cannot ask the middle-class and seniors to bear all the burden of higher costs and budget cuts. We need a balanced approach that asks the very wealthiest and special interests to pay their fair share as well, and we believe the American people agree.
“Both parties have made real progress thus far, and to back off now will not only fail to solve our fiscal challenge, it will confirm the cynicism people have about politics in Washington. The President believes that now is the moment to rise above that cynicism and show the American people that we can still do big things. And so tomorrow, he will make the case to congressional leaders that we must reject the politics of least resistance and take on this critical challenge.”
Obviously, President Obama needs to leave the possibility of a big deal on the table, but unless something major changes, it's not going to happen.
The key thing here is that it was Boehner and the Republican party who rejected a debt deal. Their bluff has gotten called. They were never serious about deficit or debt reduction. All they wanted was to pursue their right-wing economic ideology.
With the debt ceiling deadline now just three weeks away—a deadline that Boehner agrees is real—the job in front of Boehner is figuring out how to cobble together enough Republican votes to join with the Democrats in raising the debt limit so we can avoid a federal default. Boehner himself admits there will not be a big deal. But we still need to raise the debt limit. And he's got to deliver.
9:12 PM PT: Statement from House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson:
“The American people get it. They are weary of the theater and the political drama because they understand that it is their pensions, their savings, their mortgages and their 401Ks that the Republicans are playing with. This shouldn’t be about who’s going to be the next President or who’s going to control Congress, it should be about who’s going to protect their savings, their mortgages and their 401Ks in this crisis. Republicans continue to hold in disregard Americans true needs: jobs and financial security.
“For the sake of the nation, it’s time to forget the politics and vote a clean debt ceiling increase, as was done seven times for President Bush.”