White House debt talks collapse, as John Boehner quits

by alaaron | July 22, 2011 at 03:54 pm

91 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

House Speaker John Boehner on Friday pulled out of negotiations with President Obama on raising the nation's legal limit to borrow money, just days before an Aug. 2 deadline when the government can no longer pay all its bills and faces its first-ever possible default. "The White House moved the goalpost," Boehner said in a news conference, claiming that the talks broke down when the White House demanded an additional $400 billion in new revenues to the $800 billion that was agreed upon, "which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the American people." Boehner also said, "They refused to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform."

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has walked away from crunch debt ceiling talks at the White House with US President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama said Mr Boehner had rejected an "extraordinarily fair deal" that would have included $650bn (£400bn) of cuts to entitlement programmes.

Mr Obama said he had been willing to take "a lot of heat" from his party.

Mr Boehner told a news conference afterwards that Mr Obama had "moved the goal posts" by demanding a tax hike.