The White House is also considering a fee on financial transactions that would generate about $30 billion over the next decade.
For individuals, administration officials are looking at a plan promoted by House Democrats that would cap deductions for households earning more than $500,000 a year at 10 percent of adjusted gross income. That provision alone could generate as much as $210 billion over the next decade, depending on the details.
A new take on the overlapping priorities that led us to record deficits, and who voted for them.
Stepping directly into stalled debt talks, President Barack Obama is inviting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell to separate meetings Monday, shifting the negotiations to the highest levels. (June 24)
Running in the red
“We’re focused on millionaires and billionaires,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks. “We want things that are unjustifiable loopholes, are indefensible on economic grounds and are indefensible on fairness grounds. Carried interest and corporate jets meet both of those tests.”
Administration officials declined to speculate when talks between the White House and both chambers of Congress will resume in earnest. But they emphasized that much progress has been made in the Biden talks over the past seven weeks, and that there is reason to be optimistic that the Aug. 2 deadline will be met.
“The sooner people can resume progress the better,” the official said. “I don’t see any reason to doubt that we’ll be able to do a long-term extension of the debt limit accompanied by very serious deficit reduction.”
Biden and six lawmakers from both parties had tentatively agreed to more than $1 trillion in savings and had begun to tackle the toughest issues: Democratic demands for higher taxes and spending cuts at the Pentagon, and Republican demands for sharp cuts to health and retirement programs.
“It is my hope that the President requested this meeting in order to finally explain what it is that he’s prepared to do to solve our nation’s fiscal crisis,” McConnell said in a statement.
Speaking at an event in Richmond on Friday, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) accused the Republicans of “playing political games.”
Warner and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) have been leading a bipartisan band of senators, dubbed the Gang of Six, to forge a comprehensive deficit-cutting plan — a mix of spending cuts and changes to the tax code and entitlement programs.
This problem can’t be solved “on one side of the balance sheet” by just cutting spending or raising taxes, Warner said. “The numbers don’t lie.” He said he hopes to resolve the last few differences and unveil the Gang of Six plan in a week or so.
Staff writer Anita Kumar and Zachary Goldfarb contributed to this report.
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