For a 'big deal' Boehner ends his bid

WASHINGTON - 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 scope to avoid a first-ever default on the nation's mounting national debt.

Boehner (R., Ohio) told Obama - who is hosting a key meeting Sunday evening on the debt issue - that their efforts to "go big," as the speaker says, were stymied by the toughest issues: taxes and entitlements.
"Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt-reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase," Boehner said in a statement less than 24 hours before the Obama meeting was to take place.

Boehner told Obama that, their efforts to "go big," as the speaker says, were stymied by the toughest issues: taxes and entitlements. Democrats continued to insist on tax revisions that would not pass muster in the conservative-dominated House of Representatives, and Republicans wanted cuts to programs such as Medicare and Social Security that Obama and Senate Democrats would oppose.

"Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt-reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase," Boehner said in a statement less than 24 hours before the Obama meeting was to took place.
In a statement Saturday night, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said: "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 verify their fair share as well, and we believe the American people agree."

The emerging deal collapsed of its own ideological weight. Liberals were outraged at the proposals for entitlements, particularly a reduction in the annual increase of Social Security benefits, and conservatives were opposed to the idea of raising federal revenue through the tax proposal, which they would have labeled one of the largest tax hikes in history.