The President and the Speaker sat across from each other, engaging in yet another negotiation session. All the aides had been ordered out of the room. They would get involved later when it came to negotiate the details, but right now they still needed to agree on the broad strokes. Several negotiating sessions had yielded no agreement, and now they were only days away from the ‘fiscal cliff.’ If they were going to cut a deal, it was going to be now.
President Obama watched as Speaker Boehner thumbed through his latest proposal. Obama was confident he’d say the terms were good. There would still be lots of details to work out, but the principles made too much sense for Boehner to turn down. Obama sat cross-legged, calmly tapping his fingers together in his lap, and waited patiently for Boehner to finish reading.
Eventually, the silence was pierced by Boehner. “This isn’t good enough.”
President Obama was known for his unflappable cool, but he didn’t bother disguising the irritation in his voice this time. “What?”
“There’s too much revenue, and there aren’t enough cuts in here.”
“John. You said you’d raise taxes if I gave you something on entitlement reform. Chained CPI is something. We both know it doesn’t save us that much money to raise the age of Medicare. We both know federal discretionary spending has already been cut to the bone. ”
“We should be raising revenue through tax reform!” said Boehner. “I told you this last year.”
“That was last year, John. We've had an election since then. I won.”
“As you so often remind us, Mr. President,” Speaker Boehner practically sneered.
“You cannot come to me, a year later after I’ve won re-election and you’ve lost seats in the House and Senate, and say, ‘I will only agree to Mitt Romney’s tax plan and Paul Ryan’s spending cuts.’ If the people of the United States wanted that, they would have elected Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. They didn’t.”
“You’re counting savings on US debt interest from the spending cuts as part of the spending cuts. That’s not acceptable.”
Obama couldn’t believe that he was hearing. “We’ve been doing that for decades, John. Both parties. How is money we’re not spending on interest not a spending cut?” Boehner was not convinced. “This isn’t good enough. I told you, we need entitlement reform. Where are the reforms? Chained CPI isn’t a reform.”
“Chained CPI will get me killed by everyone on the left, but I’m willing to do it because I want to make a deal with you. I don’t have to do it. We can go over the cliff. But I don’t want extended unemployment to lapse, I don’t want taxes to go up on 98% of Americans, I don’t want things like the Child Care Tax Credit to expire. You needed a sacrificial lamb from me. I cannot believe I am spending my political capital on you and that still isn’t good enough.”
“Sorry, Mr. President. But this isn’t good enough. Chained CPI isn’t a cut. It’s how we should be calculating CPI anyway. Inflation in beef doesn’t matter if you can eat pork.”
“I suppose you don’t think it matters if you can eat cat food, either,” Obama shot back. It was true that Chained CPI wasn’t a devastating entitlement cut, and it was preferable to doing something like raising the Medicare age, but it was a cut. It was a Democratic President suggesting a cut to a Democratic cornerstone. It should have been enough of a trophy for Boehner to hold in front of his idiot caucus and get a bill passed. But apparently not.
Boehner pushed his chair away from the table, prepared to stand up. “We’ll meet again when you’re ready for your next proposal.”
Obama just smirked and shook his head. “There’s not going to be another proposal, John. Not from me. That’s the deal. If you want more cuts, you have to suggest them. We both know the game. Everyone hates “government spending,” but nobody really wants to cut government spending. Medicare and Social Security aren’t Democratic sacred cows, John. They’re all of ours.”
“Well, Mr. President,” Boehner said, getting up, “a bill based on this proposal won’t see the light of day in the House. I’m willing to keep working on you, but you have to get serious.”
While Obama didn’t expect Boehner to reject his proposal so outwardly as he was doing now, he was prepared for this response. He had heard some version of it in the past week, and the past month, and the past two years.
“John, I want to make this painfully clear to you. This is the final deal. I’m not going any further than this, and there’s not enough time for another deal. You have the majority in the House, but we both know the makeup of your caucus means you’ll need Democratic votes to get anything passed. Reject this deal, and we’re going over the cliff. That’s just the reality.”
Boehner finally stood up, tight-lipped. The President had a point, but he couldn’t just concede. “You’re wrong about that. House Republicans are perfectly capable of passing legislation on our own. I’m just as capable of putting pressure on your party, Mr. President. I will get a bill passed, it’ll be your party that caused us to go over the cliff, not me.”
Obama was skeptical. “Yeah, John? You have a plan to actually do that?”
“I do, Mr. President. It’s called… ‘Plan B.’ “