Fiscal Cliff: President Obama's Plan

President Obama plans to open talks using his most recent budget proposal, which sought to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy by $1.6 trillion over the next decade. That’s double the sum that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) offered Obama during secret debt negotiations in 2011.

Boehner suggested that negotiations resume on terms discussed in 2011, when he offered to raise $800 billion over the next decade through a rewrite of the tax code.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) endorsed that general idea Tuesday but warned Obama not to overplay his hand, noting that the president’s $1.6 trillion tax request failed to receive a single vote in Congress in the spring.

Obama’s 2013 budget sought to reduce borrowing over the next 10 years by about $4 trillion, counting $1.1 trillion in agency cuts already in force. In addition to raising taxes, Obama proposed to slice $340 billion from health-care programs and to count about $1 trillion in savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.His budget request did not include reductions to health and retirement benefits, but Obama did consider such changes in his 2011 talks with Boehner, including raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 and applying a stingier measure of inflation to Social Security.  (Wash Post, 11/13/2012)