GOP, Obama have ‘frank’ discussion

House Republicans and President Obama had a “frank” but “productive” discussion at the White House Wednesday, according to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Boehner and other GOP leaders greeting the media after the one-hour meeting said they pushed Obama to agree to spending cuts equal to any increase in the nation’s borrowing limit that is approved by Congress.

The GOP has been making the demand for weeks. The White House has been pushing for Congress to hike the nation’s debt limit by $2.4 trillion, and the House on Tuesday rejected a measure to raise the ceiling without corresponding spending cuts.

{mosads}On the issue of taxes, Republicans said they would not budge.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that he has instructed his members to hold steady on preserving the Bush tax cuts for the middle class and more affluent taxpayers, saying “it’s counterintuitive to believe you’re going to raise taxes on certain entities and individuals you’re expecting to create jobs.”

Cantor said the president pushed them on his theme of investment in the future, but Cantor said “to a lot of us that’s code for more Washington spending, and that’s something we can’t afford right now.”

Asked later by The Hill if Obama had signaled any willingness to bend on taxes, Cantor laughed before saying, “No.”

Other Republicans after the meeting scoffed at Obama, who they said had mentioned that tax rates were higher during the Reagan era than they are now. 

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) joked that during the meeting, “We learned we had the lowest tax rates in history … lower than Reagan!”

Tax rates were higher for most U.S. taxpayers during much of Reagan’s presidency, though all individual taxpayers received a tax break under the 1986 tax reform law ushered in by President Reagan.

In 1984, a 50 percent tax rate existed on income above $162,400 a year, although many taxpayers could find loopholes in the tax code to reduce their tax burden. Many of those loopholes were eliminated in the 1986 reform law.

In the last year of Reagan’s presidency, in 1988, there were two tax rates for individuals; a 15 percent rate for those making less than $17,850 and a 28 percent rate for those making above that level.

Today’s tax code includes six rates, with the highest tax bracket paying 35 percent on income above $379,150.

Boehner, Cantor, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R), sophomore Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and freshman Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) all spoke during the meeting, according to participants.

Republicans and the White House face an Aug. 2 deadline set by the Treasury Department to reach a deal on raising the debt ceiling. If the ceiling isn’t raised, the U.S. could default, and Treasury has warned of calamitous economic effects.

While the White House has criticized Republicans for being inflexible, Boehner and the leadership team emerged from the meeting saying Obama still had not come up with a plan to cut the deficit.

“Unfortunately, what we did not hear from the president is a specific plan of his to deal with the debt crisis,” said Hensarling.

The GOP leaders said that the conversation was frank, and revolved around the “philosophical differences” Obama and Republicans have over the best way to cut spending while growing the economy.

The leadership said that they did get Obama to agree that entitlement reform is necessary, something Obama has said before, and Ryan said he described for the president what his Medicare plan would do.

Obama and Democrats have made Ryan’s Medicare plan a political hot-button issue this year, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle blamed the “Mediscare” plan for costing Republicans a seat in a special election in upstate New York late last month.

“I simply described what our plan is, how it works,” Ryan said.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) said that Ryan earned a “standing ovation” from the droves of Republicans at the White House meeting. Terry noted that the president did not give Ryan a standing ovation.

Illinois Rep. John Shimkus (R) told The Hill that he “learned the word hyperbole” at the meeting, noting that “we just have a long way to go.”

As for the current stand-off on raising the debt ceiling, Shimkus said that Obama “is putting a lot of faith in [Vice President] Biden and Cantor and the whole process,” referring to the commission meeting to work out differences between the parties.