President Barack Obama quickly spurned House Speaker John Boehner’s latest compromise offer, as the federal government continues its scheduled progress towards the $600 billion so-called fiscal cliff in January.
The rejection came Sunday, two days after Boehner had offered to raise tax rates for Americans earning more than $1 million dollars per year.
News of Boehner’s compromise will likely spur protest by the GOP’s small-government wing.
On Friday, Boehner also proposed to raise the government’s debt limit by roughly $1 trillion over its current level of $16.3 trillion. That’s also controversial, because Republican advocates of smaller government want to use Congress’ control over the debt-limit to curb the federal government’s 10-year $45 trillion spending plan.
Obama’s rapid spending — he has raised the national debt by $5.7 trillion since 2008 — means that he must persuade Congress to raise the debt ceiling again in the next few months.
Boehner’s Friday proposal would have transferred another $460 billion in the next decade from roughly 400,000 investors and entrepreneurs to the federal government by raising their top marginal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.
Other federal, state and local taxes lift the effective tax rate on top earners to well over 50 percent.
GOP leaders say such high tax rates shrivel investment, hurt job creation and curb tax revenues.
But Obama didn’t consider Boehner’s $460 billion offer big enough, even when combined with the House speaker’s previous offer to cut several hundred billion dollars in tax breaks used by upper-income Americans, according to a White House official cited by The Washington Post.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/17/white-house-rejects-boehners-offer-to-boost-millionaires-tax-rate-in-exchange-for-spending-cuts/#ixzz2FIe4A8vv