Similar to last December, as negotiations near their final moments, the President and his team have decided that they have reached the point to go into all out bully pulpit mode.
In a bid to take his case to voters, the president also will hold a press conference Monday morning, the White House announced at the conclusion of the meeting.
During a 75-minute session Sunday at the White House, Obama told the congressional leaders that America is not a “banana republic,” so he won’t agree to several months-long debt increases that raise fears of a default, according to two Democratic officials familiar with the meeting.
He argued several times that negotiators should work toward a large-scale package for reducing the deficit rather than the smaller one favored by Republicans, calling on them to stand up to their base to get it done. He said both parties would suffer politically, but they need to do something substantial, said a third Democratic official familiar with the meeting.
The next few days will certainly be interesting to say the least.
A few other items starting to dribble out of the meeting that I suspect are of interest to the community.
The Post writers go back and provide a brief overview of what is considered the Biden plan.
The Biden approach has problems as well, and aides in both parties questioned whether it offers a realistic path to compromise. Negotiators were still struggling to meet the $2.4 trillion goal when the talks broke up over taxes. Aides in both parties said a consensus had formed around only about $1.5 trillion in savings.
Of that, a little more than $1 trillion came from agency budgets. The parties were hung up over Democratic demands for a “firewall” between domestic and military spending, which would guarantee that the Pentagon shares in the pain of any agency cuts, as well as Republican concerns that Democrats were offering minuscule reductions in 2012 and 2013.
The rest of the savings were split about evenly between health programs — primarily Medicare and Medicaid — and other direct-payment programs. Negotiators were also considering changes to Social Security, such as using a different measure of inflation that would have the effect of reducing payouts.
To be clear, this appears to reference where negotiations left off in June. Reporting as of yesterday stated SS was pulled from discussion due to Democratic demands.
Even with that, Dems are pushing back on the how much of an agreement there is within the Biden Group.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said the Biden talks identified only about $1 trillion in spending cuts. Democrats would agree to those cuts only if certain tax loopholes were closed, such as tax breaks for corporate jet owners and subsidies for oil and gas companies.
“Our Republicans colleagues are dreaming if they think we had $2.4 trillion in cuts,” said Van Hollen, a participant in the Biden talks.
Mitch McConnell believes he has a back up plan, but is keeping it to himself.
“Nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. I haven’t heard that discussed by anybody,” McConnell said, adding that he would describe a “contingency plan” later this week if a deal isn’t reached.
Republican aides declined to discuss that plan, but McConnell has in recent weeks suggested that even the Biden framework is too ambitious and that lawmakers may need an alternative that cuts spending by a modest amount in exchange for a much shorter increase in the debt ceiling.
And it looks like Speaker Boehner has figuratively handed over the reins...at least momentarily...according to sources...
Mr. Boehner appeared subdued at the meeting, officials said, letting the House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, do most of the talking. Mr. Cantor reiterated his opposition to a bigger deal.
Privately, some in Congress expressed regret at Mr. Boehner’s decision on Saturday to walk away from an agreement that they said would have been a rare opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to radically restructure the government’s finances, rewrite the tax code and fix longstanding problems with Medicare and Medicaid.
...
A Republican official familiar with the negotiations said Mr. Boehner “would only discuss new revenues if they came from economic growth and tax reform instead of tax increases.” And he insisted on a “trigger” that would set off deep spending cuts and other measures if the tax changes were not implemented before the end of 2011.
Mr. Boehner and the White House, Democratic officials said, also disagreed over the scope of cuts to entitlement programs, with the speaker demanding deeper cuts in Medicare and Medicaid than the administration was willing to accept.
Although, it appears the talks broke down early with the President basically telling Cantor to go find the votes for the smaller deal, because they didn't believe he had them and would have an easier time finding them for the larger bill.
So that is the state of play. I intentionally didn't add a lot of my opinion. Feel free to discuss in comments.
Have a good night and enjoy the week.