Obama calls Sunday meeting on deficit
President Obama dashed off a message to congressional leaders before heading to Camp David, urging them to meet back at the White House on Sunday serious about working out a deficit-reduction plan.
In his Saturday morning address, Obama acknowledged the stark differences in position among the negotiators, framing them as a case of Republicans and Democrats who don’t see “eye to eye on a number of issues.”
But the political situation is far more complicated than that, as vote counters in the House and Senate are discovering as they search for a combination of provisions that might be able to pass both chambers.
Republicans are likely to lose dozens of votes, particularly from conservative and “tea party” lawmakers who won’t vote for such a package no matter what. This would force House Speaker John A. Boehner to rely on Democrats to help pass a compromise agreement in the GOP-controlled House.
But progressives are rejecting any package that would cut into the social safety net. They hold sizable sway in both chambers.
Nonetheless, the leaders are scheduled to meet Sunday afternoon to try to work toward a compromise. Obama and Boehner want to craft a plan that would reduce deficits by $4 trillion over the next decade, in time to win support for a measure to raise the country’s debt ceiling.
After Aug. 2, the Treasury Department warns, the country won’t be able to pay its debts without permission to borrow.
“We can meet our fiscal challenge,” Obama said in his address, echoing the message he has sounded for the last week. “That’s what the American people sent us here to do. They didn’t send us here to kick our problems down the road.”
Both sides in Congress have lowered expectations heading into Sunday’s meeting, acknowledging the difficulty of bridging the partisan divide in time to strike a deal. In their weekly radio address, Republicans questioned whether the president’s economic policies can be trusted in the wake of Friday’s disappointing jobs report.
“Where are the jobs?” asked Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Washington state Republican who delivered this week’s GOP message Saturday. “Our economy is actually creating fewer jobs month to month right now.”
“If we’ve learned anything, it’s that we cannot spend, tax or borrow our way to prosperity,” she said. “To create jobs and set our country on a sound fiscal course, we must stop spending money we don’t have.”?
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