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发帖数: 6771 | 1 http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2012/12/02/obama-tim-geit
10:04AM EST December 2. 2012 - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed
President Obama on Sunday, saying there won't be a fiscal cliff deal with
Republicans without higher taxes on the wealthy.
"There's not going to be an agreement without rates going up," Geithner said
on CNN's State of the Union, one of a series of talk show appearances he
made on Sunday.
Geithner noted that Obama is offering the debt reduction deal he campaigned
on, including an elimination of the George W. Bush tax cuts for Americans
who make more than $250,000 a year.
Republicans say they will agree to more government revenues through
elimination of tax loopholes, but not through an increase in tax rates they
say will slow the economy.
Both parties face the prospect next year of the so-called "fiscal cliff," a
series of tax hikes and budget cuts that affect all Americans in the absence
of a debt reduction agreement.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told Fox News Sunday that "the White
House has spent three weeks (since the election) doing basically nothing,"
and that its pending offer emphasizes tax hikes while lacking specifics
about spending cuts.
Obama and his team "won the election," Boehner said, but "they must have
forgotten that Republicans continue to hold a majority in the House."
Raising tax rates "hurts our economy, hurts the prospects for more jobs in
our country," Boehner said.
The White House has said that Obama will veto any fiscal proposal that does
not eliminate the Bush tax rates for the wealthy. They also stress that,
without an agreement, all the Bush tax rates expire and all Americans will
see tax hikes.
Geithner carried the president's message to all five major Sunday talk shows.
The Treasury Secretary downplayed Republican objections to the president's
plan. He noted that GOP leaders are in a tough position with their more
conservative members, but predicted that enough party members would
eventually sign on to a deal that includes higher tax rates on the nation's
wealthiest citizens.
"There's going to be a lot of political theater between now and when we get
there," Geither said on CNN. |
