President Obama(Photo: Nati Harnik, AP)
President Obama makes his first bid on new budget talks today with a statement at the White House.
The
president, who has largely stayed out of public sight in the two days
since his re-election, is again expected to call on higher taxes for the
wealthy as part of a "balanced" approach to start reducing the nations
$16 trillion-plus federal debt.
At 1:05 p.m. in the East Room,
Obama is scheduled to deliver a statement "about the action we need to
keep our economy growing and reduce our deficit," says the White House
schedule.
Obama is also expected to emphasize the need for
Congress to work together to avoid a slew of tax hikes that would take
effect at the start of the year in absence of a new deal with the White
House.
Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio,
told USA TODAY's Susan Davis he will seek a short-term deal to delay
the so-called "fiscal cliff," and that he will resist efforts to make
major tax and spending changes in the lame duck session of Congress.
"I've
never seen a lame duck Congress do big things," Boehner said. "And as
speaker I feel pretty strongly that a lame duck Congress shouldn't do
big things."
Boehner and other Republicans also argue that any tax increases would slow the economy and cost jobs.
From the Associated Press:
"A
new Congressional Budget Office report on Thursday predicted that the
economy would fall into recession if there is a protracted impasse in
Washington and the government falls off the fiscal cliff for the entire
year. Though most Capitol-watchers think that a long deadlock is
unlikely, the analysts say such a scenario would cause a spike in the
jobless rate to 9.1 percent by next fall.
"Some analysts believe
that the fiscal cliff is more like a fiscal slope and that the economy
could weather a short-term expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts
and that the government could manage a wave of automatic spending cuts
for a few weeks. But at a minimum, going over the fiscal cliff would
mean delays in filing taxes and obtaining refunds and would rattle
financial markets as the economy struggles to recover.
"The CBO
analysis says that the cliff -- a combination of automatic tax increases
and spending cuts -- would cut the deficit by $503 billion through next
September, but that the fiscal austerity would cause the economy to
shrink by 0.5 percent next year and cost millions of jobs."
USA Today