WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner called it “ironic” that President Obama blamed Republicans for stalled negotiations on the "fiscal cliff" and accused the Democrat of being unwilling to stand up to his own party.
Responding to Obama’s appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” the Ohio Republican said the GOP has been “reasonable and responsible” throughout the talks.
“In an effort to get the president to agree to cut spending -- which is the problem -- I put revenues on the table last year, and I put them on the table again last month,” Boehner said in a statement. “Republicans made every effort to reach the ‘balanced’ deficit agreement that the president promised the American people, while the president has continued to insist on a package skewed dramatically in favor of higher taxes that would destroy jobs.”
In an interview taped Saturday, Obama told NBC’s David Gregory that he remained “optimistic” that a deal could be reached, but said that in his mind, the sticking point was that Republicans “have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers.”
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“Congress has not been able to get this stuff done, not because Democrats in Congress don't want to go ahead and cooperate, but because I think it's been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader [Mitch] McConnell to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit, as part of an overall deficit reduction package,” he said.
“I negotiated with Speaker Boehner in good faith and moved more than halfway in order to achieve a grand bargain.”
Earlier this month, Obama had offered to raise the income threshold for higher tax rates to $400,000, from the $250,000 he had campaigned on. Boehner pulled back from the negotiations and tried to pass what he called "Plan B," which would have boosted the threshold to $1 million. He failed to get support from House Republicans and did not bring it to the floor.
Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, responded that “while the president was taping those discordant remarks yesterday, Sen. McConnell was in the office working to bring Republicans and Democrats together on a solution. Discussions continue today.”
In his statement, Boehner noted that the House has passed multiple bills that would avert the entire fiscal cliff, addressing both the looming across-the-board tax increases and deep spending cuts.
“The president has never called for the Senate to act on those bills in any way. He instead has simply allowed the Democratic-controlled Senate to sit on them and lead our economy to the edge of the fiscal cliff,” Boehner said.
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The Senate has passed budget bills that the House has not acted upon.
The House is due to gavel in Sunday afternoon, with votes expected on unrelated bills. The Senate is in session while leaders and staff continue to seek a solution that would garner enough votes to move over to the House.
“We know that there are negotiations going on,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on the Senate floor. “I really hope our leaders can find a way out of this.”
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Boehner: Obama won't stand up to his own party on 'fiscal cliff'
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Boehner: Obama won't stand up to his own party on 'fiscal cliff'
