As you may have heard over the weekend, House Speaker John Boehner has backed away from reaching a deal to reduce future deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, saying he prefers that negotiators should focus instead on a deal with President Obama on a deal that may be only that size.
Congress has just three weeks to reach a deficit-reduction deal in time for Congress to pass legislation to raise the $14.3 trillion dollar debt ceiling. Boehner is said to have dropped the idea of a big plan because he couldn't sell tax increases to his caucus. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said yesterday on NBC's Meet The Press that there must be a balance of tax cuts (or revenue enhancements) of some kind to along with the huge spending cuts being considered:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
This article appears in Jul 7-13, 2011.