By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Five weeks after President Barack
Obama won re-election and gained more leverage to make GOP
conservatives bend on taxes, the new balance of power is proving vexing
for both sides.
Republicans still aren't budging on Obama's demands
for higher tax rates on upper bracket earners, despite the president's
convincing election victory and opinion polls showing support for the
idea.
Democrats in turn are now resisting steps, such as
raising the eligibility age for Medicare, that they were willing to
consider just a year and a half ago, when Obama's chief Republican
adversary, House Speaker John Boehner, was in a better tactical
position.
With less than three weeks before the government
could careen off a "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax hikes and sweeping
spending cuts, Boehner, R-Ohio, said "serious differences" remain
between him and Obama after an exchange of offers and a pair of
conversations this week.
Neither side has given much ground, and Boehner's
exchange of proposals with Obama seemed to generate hard feelings more
than progress. The White House has slightly reduced its demands on taxes
- from $1.6 trillion over a decade to $1.4 trillion - but isn't
yielding on demands that rates rise for wealthier earners.
Boehner responded with an offer very much like one
he gave the White House more than a week ago that proposed $800 billion
in new revenue, half of Obama's demand. Boehner is also pressing for an
increase in the Medicare eligibility age and a stingier cost-of-living
adjustment for Social Security recipients.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the two men did not have any follow-up talks Wednesday.
"There were some offers that were exchanged back
and forth (Tuesday), and the president and I had a pretty frank
conversation about just how far apart we are," Boehner said after his
meeting with fellow Republican lawmakers.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke weighed in as
well. He said, "Clearly, the fiscal cliff is having effects on the
economy," the uncertainty affecting consumer and business confidence and
leading businesses to cut back on investment.
Obama planned to make his case on the fiscal cliff
in interviews Thursday afternoon with four local television stations in
Philadelphia, Miami, Minneapolis and Sacramento, Calif. The TV markets
reach viewers in congressional districts represented by Republican House
members but won by Obama in last month's election.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was
"interested in communicating to Americans in every corner of the country
about his commitment to work in bipartisan fashion with Congress to
ensure that income taxes don't go up on middle class families at the end
of the year."
On Thursday, Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina
Republican and leading conservative figure, predicted that Obama would
prevail in the fight over taxes.
A leading conservative who's resigning from the
Senate is predicting that President Barack Obama will win the battle
over raising taxes.
"He's going to get his wish. I believe we're going
to be raising taxes, and not just on the top earners," DeMint, who is
leaving the Senate to become president of the Heritage Institution think
tank, said in an appearance on "CBS This Morning."
DeMint said a tax increase would amount to a "political trophy" for Obama but said it would be bad for the country.
"The president's proposal is not a plan, it's not a solution," he said.
There is increasing concern about a Dec. 31
deadline to stop the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts and the start of
across-the-board spending cuts that are the result of Washington's
failure to complete a deficit-reduction deal last year. Even if an
agreement can be reached, the halting pace of negotiations is
jeopardizing chances that it could be written into proper legislative
form and passed through both House and Senate before the new Congress
convenes on Jan. 3.
Both sides accuse the other of slow-walking the
talks. Democrats say Boehner is unwilling to crack on the key issue of
raising tax rates on family income over $250,000 because he's afraid of a
revolt on his right flank and from younger, ambitious members of his
leadership team.
"I do have an increasing concern that the speaker
... is trying to string this out until Jan. 3 because that's when he
would be re-elected as speaker," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland,
top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. "And I think he's nervous
that if he can't get a majority of his House Republican members to
support a reasonable agreement that that could put his speakership
election in jeopardy. And so that might cause him to try and string
these talks" along.
Republicans say it's Democrats who are dragging out the talks.
"In the past 48 hours, the president has not been
negotiating in good faith in my opinion," said Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio,
who said he was increasingly pessimistic that a deal could be reached.
"I believe we can get to a point on revenues that
we can get something done, but the problem is the White House and the
president refuse to get serious about spending," House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor, R-Va., said.
While Republicans are flummoxed on taxes, liberal
Democrats are trying to pull Obama in the opposite direction on Medicare
and Social Security. Eighteen months ago, Obama had all but agreed to
an increase in the Medicare retirement age and a less generous inflation
adjustment for calculating Social Security COLAs.
Now, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is warning
against raising the Medicare eligibility age, saying such a move
wouldn't contribute much savings toward an agreement in the short term.
Democrats are also pushing back against a GOP plan
to reduce Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, another step back
from where Obama and Boehner were just 18 months ago.
"Quite frankly, Social Security is off the table," Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., said.
The backtracking has Republicans fuming that Obama
campaigned on a "balanced" fiscal solution but now is unwilling to pair
tax increases with politically painful cuts to Medicare and other
popular programs.
Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Nyia Hawkins contributed to this report.
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