Boehner: No progress in talks

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

House Speaker John Boehner said Friday there has been no progress in negotiations to avert a “fiscal cliff” combination of automatic tax increases and spending cuts in January and called on President Barack Obama to produce a new offer.

Hours later, Vice President Joe Biden again laid out the White House’s terms: raise the top two tax rates paid by upper-income earners and give the president authority to raise the government’s borrowing cap without the approval of Congress.

“Top brackets have to go up. The top rate should go to 39.6 percent,” Biden said, referring to the top Clinton- era tax rate. Obama campaigned on raising tax rates on individual income exceeding $200,000 and family income over $250,000, and he’s claiming his re-election as a mandate to insist on it. Republicans are offering new tax revenues through closing loopholes and curbing deductions.

Biden allowed that the White House is willing to negotiate over rates — even as he pressed a new administration demand for authority for Obama to unilaterally raise the national debt and avoid a reprise of the debt crisis of a year and a half ago.

“We have to have a mechanism to stop the brinkmanship for dealing with the national debt,” Biden said.

Boehner’s frustration seems to be mounting. He said that the White House has wasted another week and has failed to respond to Monday’s GOP offer to raise tax revenues and cut spending. Obama and Boehner spoke privately by phone Wednesday. Boehner described the conversation as pleasant “but just more of the same.”