Obama: GOP position on debt limit not "sustainable"

[IDemo]

Source: CBS news

Updated 12:16 p.m. Eastern Time

President Obama said Wednesday that the Republican position that they will not accept any tax increases as part of a deal to increase the debt limit is not "sustainable," adding, "everybody else has been willing to move off their maximalist position; they need to do the same."

Mr. Obama said Democrats have already taken on their "sacred cows" in the negotiations, including accepting spending cuts that hurt their constituencies and an openness to "look at" entitlement programs. Yet Republicans, he said, have refused to break from their opposition to tax increases for "corporate jet owners" and oil companies.

"If everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that, 'The tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we're not willing to come to the table and get a deal done,' or, 'We're so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist, that's the reason we're not going to come to a deal,'" he said. "I don't think that's a sustainable position."

Mr. Obama predicted "we will reach a deal" to raise the debt limit, adding that his "expectation is that they'll do the responsible thing."

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20075413-503544.html

[Lasher]

1. I'm glad to see him turning their 'unsustainable' meme back on them.

But if we have already taken on our 'sacred cows' and they have not, it means Obama's negotiating style has not changed.

[Igel]

4. Any word on how big the spending cuts would be?

I'm working in a vacuum here. I keep hearing about all the draconian cuts, but either there's no detail as to how big they are or they're "big" (but unquantified) and to take place "later"--either in '14, '15, '16, or just "in several years."

I view any cut or tax increase that's not in the very next budget or budget resolution they vote on as fiction. The act of awesome will and compromise isn't the current batch of politicians, but will actually have to be implemented by some future group of politicians. Even a chunk of the last "budget cuts" weren't cuts by any reasonable definition, but simple repurposing of left over funds from prior years. (Rather like my cutting this year's family budget by dipping into my kid's piggy bank.)

[Lasher]

5. That is a good point.

That's the way military spending cuts have been working out. The current batch of fiscal heroes bravely commits to cuts that will be borne by someone else in the future. When the time comes, of course, the can always ends up getting kicked down the road to the next administration. Amidst a constant flurry of reductions, we end up spending more on defense every single year - including this one.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

[thereismore]

2. I hope the President will not turn Medicare in for corporate jet tax breaks as an even exchange. nt

[JJW]

3. End the freakin' wars!

Stop spending $ 1.2 trillion, one out of every two dollars on killing poor brown people.