Obama Summons Leaders to White House on Debt Talks
President Barack Obama and congressional leaders are scrambling to find a way ahead on a debt deal after House Speaker John Boehner threw negotiations into crisis by walking outless than two weeks before the deadline to avoid a potentially catastrophic default.
A visibly frustrated Obama summoned Boehner, R-Ohio, to the White House for a Saturday morning meeting with the three other leaders — Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
"We have run out of time and they are going to have to explain to me how it is that we are going to avoid default" on Aug. 2, the president told reporters at a hastily scheduled news after Boehner's announcement.
Boehner accepted the invitation even while arguing that Obama bore the blame for the collapse.
"It's the president who walked away from his agreement and demanded more money at the last minute," Boehner said. "And the only way to get that extra revenue was to raise taxes."
Saturday morning, Michael Steel, Press Secretary for Speaker Boehner, released a statement about the message the Speaker was planning to take to the President:
"As you know, the Speaker and other Congressional leaders will visit the Oval Office later this morning. Our message there will be simple: if the White House won't get serious, we will. The Speaker is determined to tackle our spending problem in a significant way and - as he stressed last night - he is committed to preventing a default on our debt.
We will be working throughout the weekend with bipartisan leaders in the House and Senate to find a serious solution. For months, the Speaker has been crystal clear that - to be serious - cuts in spending must be greater than the size of the debt limit increase. He will reiterate again today that in order for a bill to pass the House, it must include cuts greater than the debt limit increase.
Last night the President said, 'the only bottom line that I have is that we have to extend this debt ceiling through the next election.' Now, we do not know what size or shape a final package will take, but it would be terribly unfortunate if the President was willing to veto a debt limit increase simply because its timing would not be ideal for his re-election campaign. We want the most significant deficit reduction possible, but linking the full faith and credit of the United States to presidential campaign politics is not a defensible position."
The political theater played out even as the deadline neared. Barring action by then, the Treasury will be unable to pay its bills. That could cause interest rates to rise, threaten the U.S. economic recovery and send shock waves around the globe.
The deadline pressure hasn't seemed to bring the parties closer, even though they all insist they do not want a default.
For the first time since talks began, Obama declined to offer assurances that a default would be avoided, although moments later he said he was confident of that outcome.
Obama said Boehner left a deal on the table that was better for Republicans than for Democrats, with $2.6 trillion in cuts outweighing new tax revenue of $1.2 trillion. The president said he was losing confidence that the underlying deficit problems would be dealt with even if the borrowing limit rose.
"I've been left at the altar now a couple of times," Obama said.
Still, aides on both sides said there was agreement on gradually raising the age of eligibility of Medicare from 65 to 67 for future beneficiaries, and slowing the increase in cost-of-living raises in Social Security checks.
Even by the recent standards of divided government, Boehner's decision triggered an extraordinary evening Friday as the Democratic president and then the Republican speaker maneuvered for political position on this vital issue.
Unspoken, yet unmistakable in all the brinkmanship was the 2012 election campaign, still 18 months away, with the White House and both houses of Congress at stake.
Obama devoted his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to the impasse and urged Republicans to make a deal.
"We can come together for the good of the country and reach a compromise. We can strengthen our economy and leave for our children a more secure future," the president said. "Or we can issue insults and demands and ultimatums at each another, withdraw to our partisan corners and achieve nothing."
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, pressed the Republicans' sharply opposing view in his party's weekly address.
"If we're going to avoid any type of default and downgrade — if we're going to resume job creation in America — the president and his allies need to listen to the people and work with Republicans to cut up the credit cards once and for all," he said.
Private, sometimes-secret negotiations had veered uncertainly for weeks, generating reports as late as Thursday that the two sides were possibly closing in on an agreement to slash spending. That triggered a revolt among Democrats who expressed fears the president was giving away too much in terms of cuts to Medicare and Social Security while getting too little by way of additional revenues.
Obama said his only requirement for an agreement was legislation that provides the Treasury enough borrowing authority to tide the government over through the 2012 election. Boehner said he had little interest in a short-term extension either.
Republican aides said Obama had upped his demand for higher taxes during the week. The aides said administration officials had tacitly agreed to $800 billion in new revenue over 10 years but that the White House backed away and wanted $400 billion more.
Aides said the two sides were not able to bridge their differences over the triggers designed to force Congress to enact both tax changes and cuts to Medicare and other benefit programs by early next year. Both sides also were apart on the size of cuts for Medicaid, the health care program for the poor and disabled.
Yet aides on both sides said the negotiations had yielded agreement for cuts of $250 billion from Medicare.
Associated Press writers David Espo, Ben Feller and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.