Obama Presses Stripped-Down Plan to Limit Tax Increase

[Gerald]

By Friday the House and the Senate had closed for the Christmas break, with a new effort to reach a deficit reduction deal likely to start next week.

WASHINGTON — President Obama, conceding that a “grand bargain” for deficit reduction with Speaker John A. Boehner is unlikely, called Friday for Congress to approve a stripped-down measure by year’s end to prevent a tax increase for all but the richest taxpayers and to extend aid for two million unemployed Americans.

“That’s an achievable goal; that can get done in 10 days,” Mr. Obama said to reporters during a hastily scheduled evening appearance in the White House briefing room. “Call me a hopeless optimist,” he added, “but I actually think we can get this done.”

The president, who took no questions, read his statement just after a brief phone conversation with Mr. Boehner and a separate meeting at the White House with Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and Senate majority leader. It was Mr. Boehner’s stinging defeat Thursday night — when rebellious antitax House Republicans blocked a vote on his tax plan, after he had suspended negotiations with Mr. Obama — that forced the president to reach for a fallback strategy with Senate help.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/22/us...ef=todayspaper


Note: December 21, 2012