House Speaker John Boehner said today that President Obama is “slow-walking” (read: stalling) a fiscal cliff deal and challenged the recently re-elected president to name specific spending cuts in the name of compromise.
“Let’s be honest. We’re broke. The plan we offered is consistent with the president’s call for a balanced approach,” said Boehner, who said he is willing to raise taxes if Democratic leaders do the same and take spending cuts seriously. “We’re still waiting for the White House” to do the same, he said.
You can count on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to respond in seconds, reports Yahoo . She called on Boehner and Republican House leaders to allow a vote on Obama’s proposal to extend tax cuts for most Americans while allowing them to expire for the super rich. She said that the proposal would receive “overwhelming support” even among Republicans.
“The irony of this is that the White House offer had very specific cuts, the GOP counteroffer had almost none,” tweeted the president’s communications director, Dan Pfeiffer. White House aides also pointed to a summary that showed a proposed $300 billion in Medicare savings that are included in Obama’s budget as well as another $250 billion in non-health benefit programs.
Still, it is Republicans who are seemingly pushing the fiscal cliff talks for now while Democrats criticize them of being unwilling to compromise. Though the GOP has walked back on tax increases, they have as yet been unwilling to sign off on proposed spending cuts, calling for a greater tightening of the federal belt.
“The longer the White House slow-walks this process the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff,” said Boehner. Of course, it could be that the White House will allow us to go over the fiscal cliff, since recent polls show that Americans will hold Republicans responsible if that happens . Still, most economic experts believe that doing so would throw the country into another recession.
What do you think about the fiscal cliff? Is the White House stalling, or are Republicans just not playing ball?