Debt Ceiling Deadline Looms As Lawmakers Debate
The political debate over raising the debt ceiling is growing even more contentious. Michele Norris and Robert Siegel talk about what President Obama had to say about plans being negotiated.
MICHELE NORRIS, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.
The talks are off. That was the message from President Obama who made a sudden appearance late today at the White House briefing room.
President BARACK OBAMA: I just got a call about a half hour ago from Speak Boehner who indicated that he was going to be walking away from the negotiations that we've been engaged in here at the White House for a big deficit reduction and debt reduction package.
NORRIS: Congress has less than two weeks to raise the debt ceiling or the federal government will make history. For the first time, it could default on its debts.
At that late-breaking news conference, President Obama laid out what he had offered Speaker Boehner: more than a trillion dollars in discretionary spending cuts and $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs. In exchange, he wanted $1.2 trillion in additional revenues, which he said could be accomplished without hiking tax rates.
Pres. OBAMA: This was an extraordinarily fair deal. If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue.
NORRIS: But it was too much revenue for Speaker Boehner. He spoke roughly an hour later to explain why he walked away from the talks.
Mr. JOHN BOEHNER (Republican, Ohio; Speaker of the House): Let me just say that the White House moved the goalposts. There was an agreement on some additional revenues until yesterday, when the president demanded $400 billion more, which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the American people.
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