Boehner abruptly withdraws from talks with Obama

By DAVID ESPO

AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON - House Speaker John Boehner abruptly broke off talks with President Barack Obama Friday night on a deal to cut federal spending and avert a threatened government default, sending compromise efforts into an instant crisis.

Within minutes, an obviously peeved Obama virtually ordered congressional leaders to the White House for a Saturday meeting on raising the nation's debt limit. "We've got to get it done. It is not an option not to do it," he declared.

For the first time since negotiations began, he declined to offer assurances, when asked, that default would be avoided. Moments later, however, he said he was confident of that outcome.

Boehner, in a letter circulated to the House Republican rank and file, said he had withdrawn from the talks with Obama because "in the end, we couldn't connect."

He said the president wanted to raise taxes, and was reluctant to agree to cuts in benefit programs.

The disconnect in the talks with the White House was "not because of different personalities but because of different visions for our country," he said, and he announced he would now seek agreement with leaders of the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Obama was having none of that, announcing instead a morning White House meeting where he said he expected to hear proposed solutions from the top leaders of both parties in both houses.

"One of the questions the Republican Party is going to have to ask itself is, 'Can they say yes to anything?"' Obama said.

The president avoided direct criticism of Boehner, although he did mention that his phone calls to the speaker had gone unreturned during the day. One administration official said the president had tried to reach Boehner four times.

The private, sometimes-secret negotiations had veered uncertainly for weeks, generating reports as late as Thursday that the two sides were possibly closing in on an agreement to cut $3 trillion in spending and add as much as $1 trillion in possible revenue while increasing the government's borrowing authority of $2.4 trillion.

That triggered a revolt among Democrats who expressed fears the president was giving away too much in terms of cuts to Medicare and Social Security while getting too little by way of additional revenues

Officials say a default could destabilize the already weakened U.S. economy and send major ripple effects across the globe. "Failing to raise the debt ceiling would do irreparable harm to our credit standing, would undermine our ability to lead on global economic issues and would damage our economy," former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a Republican, told reporters during the day.

Current administration officials and Federal reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have said much the same thing for weeks - while gridlock persisted in Congress.

Obama said his only requirement for an agreement was legislation that provides the Treasury enough borrowing authority to tide the government over through the 2012 election.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed in a written statement, saying a shorter-term extension was unacceptable.

His counterpart, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell supported Boehner for "insisting on reducing spending and opposing the president's call for higher taxes on American families and job creators."

Not for the first time, he said, "it's time now for the debate to move out of a room in the White House and onto the House and Senate floors."

The two Senate leaders will be among the lawmakers at the White House meeting called by the president, presumably joined by Boehner and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader.

At the same time Obama and Boehner sought to define the clash to their political advantage, their aides provided details of the talks that had ended without an agreement.

Republican aides said the White House had demanded additional tax increases during the week, in the wake of a proposal by the bipartisan "Gang of Six" in the Senate, who called for an overhaul of the tax code that would increase revenue by $1 trillion over a decade.

Additionally, they said the two sides were not able to bridge their differences over the triggers designed to force Congress to enact both tax reform and cuts to Medicare and other benefit programs by early next year.

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