Seems that the President tried a bit of bait-and-switch in the negotiations – from NRO’s The Corner:
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) offered his side of the story Friday evening, echoing the tone of his letter to House Republicans. He said negotiations with the White House broke down for two reasons: 1) President Obama’s insistence on raising taxes, and 2) Obama’s “refusal to get serious” about spending cuts and meaningful entitlement reform.
Boehner said “an agreement had been reached” earlier in the week that included about $800 billion in new revenue (but not through raising increases). However, the White House on Thursday “moved the goal post” by insisting on an additional $400 billion in tax increases, which Boehner refused to accept. “I take the same oath of office as the president…to do what is in the best interest of our country,” Boehner said. “And it’s not in the best interest of our country to raise taxes in this economy.”…
NRO reports elsewhere that Obama also messed around with some of the proposed spending reforms as regards entitlements. The bottom line seems to be that a deal was in the making which was acceptable to the GOP but then when it became crunch time, Obama and the Democrats slipped provisions in the GOP had not – and could not – agree to. I don’t know if this was a poison pill to kill a deal the Democrat didn’t like, at all, or an effort to blindside the GOP (ie, at the last minute put in things that were unacceptable and count on GOP fear of busting up the deal to force them to go along). In either case it seems to have stopped things in their tracks. President Obama has called for a White House conference tomorrow – so we’ll see how that goes.
But the good news is that the GOP is standing firm – the revenue increases Boehner agreed to were such that even TEA Partiers could grudgingly accept: not a rate hike, but a reform of loopholes and such to increase revenues without hiking taxes and killing jobs. The deal is still too weak in my view – especially as I’m certain that we don’t need to raise the debt ceiling at all – but it did have a solid reduction in spending. Not nearly enough to get us out of the debt mess, but enough to put off the day of reckoning until at least 2015 or later, thus giving us a chance to replace Obama and get someone with sense in the White House. My congratulations to the Speaker for smoking out the attempted scam and refusing to be a sucker.
Now, we’ll just see what happens…
Blogs For Victory 
cant get good fruit from a rotten tree…whatta ya expect…peaches and cream?
“…$800 billion in new revenue (but not through raising increases).”
???????????????????
Is Boehner falling for the semantic infiltration of calling taxes “revenue”? Where was he going to get this new “revenue” if not from “raising increases”—whatever that means? Raising taxes? Increasing taxes? What are “raising increases”?
But the trick of appearing to agree till the last minute and then issuing an ultimatum, which is the effect of suddenly changing the terms of an agreement and setting up a sign-or-walk choice, is classic gamesmanship and proof of lack of an honest effort to reach an agreement.
9.2% unemployment, more massive lay offs being announced, NASA shuttle program shutting down resulting in more layoffs, anemic GDP growth, jobless claims on the rise…….hey I’ve got an idea – let’s suck more capital out of the private market and deposit it into the public sector where the Harvard brain trust can use it to pick more winners and losers. It’s worked so well in the past.
just print more money that always works ….doesn’t it??
I still like my idea of making money from the games life and monoply legal tender. Everyone would be rich then. Right? Right?