Deficit-reduction talks between congressional Republican leaders and President Obama broke down Friday night, with Speaker John A. Boehner saying he will try to reach a deal with Senate leaders instead of the White House.
“The deal was never reached, and was never really close,” Mr. Boehner wrote in a letter to House lawmakers released at 6 p.m. “In the end we couldn’t connect. Not because of different personalities but because of different visions for our country.”
A visibly frustrated President Obama took to the podium in the White House press briefing room minutes later to reveal that Mr. Boehner had called him to say he was pulling out of the negotiations.
“It’s hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this deal,” Mr. Obama said. “This was an extraordinarily fair deal.”
With the government expected to bump up against its debt limit on Aug. 2 if the nation’s borrowing limit is not raised, Mr. Obama said he had summoned the leaders of the House and Senate in both parties to the White House at 11 a.m. Saturday “to explain to me” how the nation would avoid default.
“We have now run out of time,” Mr. Obama said. “The American people are fed up with political posturing.”
The president outlined the framework of the proposal he had offered Republican leaders: $1 trillion in cuts to domestic spending programs over 10 years, $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs and $1.2 trillion in tax increases through closing loopholes and eliminating deductions.
“If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue,” the president said. “I was willing to take a lot of heat from my party.”
Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, called Mr. Boehner’s decision to leave the talks “stunning.”
“They refused to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform,” he said.
But Mr. Boehner says it was the administration’s insistence on revenue increases that led Republicans to change directions in talks.
Mr. Boehner denied he left the talks, telling reporters during a Friday evening news conference at the Capitol that it was “the president who walked away from his agreement and demanded more money at the last minute.”
The Ohio Republican said he and the president had agreed in principle on $800 billion in new tax revenue to be achieved through a “flatter tax code with lower rates and a broader bas.”
But the talks broke down Thursday, the speaker said, when the president then insisted on another $400 billion in tax increases.
“The White House moved the goalpost,” Mr. Boehner said.
Mr. Boehner added said he wanted more reforms to entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, than Mr. Obama was willing to concede.
“We’ve put plan after plan on the table,” Mr. Boehner said. “Never once did the president ever come to the table with a plan. We were always pushing.”
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, said the Democrats were to blame for the impasse because of their insistence on raising taxes.
“We must get Washington’s fiscal house in order, but with millions of Americans out of work, the worst thing Washington can do is to raise taxes on those we need to start hiring again,” Mr. Cantor said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, called the development “disappointing.”
“I appreciate the speaker insisting on reduced spending and opposing the President’s call for higher taxes on American families and job creators,” Mr. McConnell said.
“It is similarly disappointing that the White House has refused to join Republicans in our effort to cut Washington spending now, cap runaway spending in the future and save our entitlement programs and our country from bankruptcy by requiring the nation to balance its budget.
“Speaker Boehner has informed us that he will work on a new path forward with Leader Reid to develop a solution that will prevent default, without job killing tax hikes, while substantially reducing Washington spending.”
The president also complained that Mr. Boehner did not return a phone call from him earlier Friday.
“I’ve been left at the altar a couple of times now,” Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Boehner denied he was trying to spurn the president, saying he still trusts him as a negotiator.
“We have gotten to know each other pretty well over the course of the last six months, and I can tell you that, in all of our conversations, they were respectful,” Mr. Boehner said. “There were frustrations on both sides, but I don’t believe that our relationship is permanently damaged.”
Mr. Boehner said in his letter to colleagues that the negotiations never really came close to bearing fruit because the White House and congressional Republicans have “different views for our country.”
“The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate have not been participants in the conversations I and Leader Cantor have had with the White House; nor have Republican leaders of the Senate,” Mr. Boehner said.
“But I believe there is a shared commitment on both sides of the aisle to producing legislation that will serve the best interests of our country in the days ahead – legislation that reflects the will of the American people, consistent with the principals of the Cut, Cap & Balance Act that passed the House with bipartisan support this week.”
The speaker said he was still confident that Congress will raise the debt ceiling.
“I want to be entirely clear; no one wants to default on the full faith and credit of the United States government, and I’m convinced that we will not,” Mr. Boehner said.
“We can work together here on Capitol Hill to forge an agreement. And I’m hopeful that the president will work with us on that agreement. “
A short-term deal to raise the debt ceiling is unlikely, as Mr. Boehner said he and the president never discussed such a scenario.
“I’m not really interested in a short-term increase in the debt limit,” he said. “I believe that we have two challenges — that we have to increase the debt limit and we have to deal with our deficit and our debt.”
The president also said he is still confident that Congress will raise the debt ceiling, but added he’s less confident about any deal to reduce deficits.
“One of the questions that the Republican Party’s going to have to ask itself is, can they say yes to anything?” Mr. Obama said. “Can they say ’yes’ to anything?”
Earlier, President Obama Friday portrayed House Republicans as the only holdouts to a deal that would raise the federal government’s borrowing limit and reduce about $3 trillion in debt with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.
“The only people we have left to convince are some folks in the House of Representatives,” Mr. Obama told a townhall meeting at the University of Maryland. He said many Republican lawmakers are resisting compromise with a Democratic president because they fear primary challenges from far-right candidates.
“Their instinct of self-preservation is stronger,” the president said. He added that voters in 2010 “chose a divided government, but they didn’t choose a dysfunctional government.”
His comments came 11 days before the administration’s Aug. 2 deadline for Congress to approve an increase in the government’s debt ceiling of $14.29 trillion or face default. As the president spoke, the Senate was rejecting a House Republican bill to cut spending and mandate a balanced budget.
Round-the-clock negotiations with Congress have yet to produce a deal. Mr. Obama has been involved in intense bargaining with Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, but House GOP leaders Friday insisted that no deal is imminent.
House Majority Cantor criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, for failing to put forward a plan to deal with deficits.
“What has the Senate done?” Mr. Cantor asked. “When is Harry Reid going to put forward his ideas?”
Mr. Reid said Friday’s vote on the House bill, which the Senate voted 51-46 to set aside, was a waste of time. The vote broke down strictly along party lines.
“There is simply no more time to waste debating and voting on measures that have no hopes of becoming law,” Mr. Reid said. There is “no more time to waste playing partisan games.”
At the townhall meeting, Mr. Obama maintained that the problem is “not that complicated.”
“For a decade, we have been spending more money than we take in,” said Mr. Obama, whose presidency has seen the public debt climb by more than $3.5 trillion. “The last time the budget was balanced was under a Democratic president, Bill Clinton.”
The mention of Mr. Clinton drew sustained applause from the audience of mostly college students.
Mr. Obama said his insistence on tax increases on wealthier Americans is a reasonable goal.
“I want everybody to have a chance to become a millionaire,” the president said. “This isn’t about punishing wealth. This is about asking people who have benefited the most over the last decade to share in the sacrifice. This isn’t just my position, this isn’t just the Democratic position, this isn’t just some wild-eyed socialist position. This is a position that’s being taken by people of both parties, and [of] no party.”
While the president singled out House Republicans as holdouts in budget talks, he acknowledged that he also needs to win over lawmakers of his own party. Senate Democrats have voiced bitter criticism of proposed cuts to entitlements, and to reports that a deal might defer tax increases on the wealthy.
“I’m willing to sign a plan that includes tough choices I would not normally make, and there are a lot of Democrats and Republicans in Congress who I believe are willing to do the same thing,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s not going to make everybody happy. In fact, it will make everybody somewhat unhappy.”
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