More encourging news is emerging about the hour long meeting between President Obama and House Democrats. RhodaA has a recommended diary where he reported Democrats have taken Medicare off the table. They Get It - Medicare Cuts Not On the Table. Now Sam Stein is reporting that Obama Won't Extend Bush Tax Cuts Again: Pledge To House Dems.
President Obama said,
that his administration would draw a firm line on taxes and revenues both in the deficit- and debt-reduction debates and in the buildup to the 2012 elections. ... the president reiterated on several occasions that a deal to raise the country's debt ceiling would include revenue increases, even as Republican lawmakers insist that such a deal should be restricted to spending cuts and entitlement reforms. ....
Obama noted taxes would be a defining area of contrast with Republicans on the campaign trail. He insisted that he would not compromise again on his position that the tax rates for the top earners be raised to pre-Bush levels.
"'Whatever we agree on, we are still going to have plenty to argue about in 2012,'" a senior administration official said, paraphrasing the president. "'I've said I'm not going to renew the tax cuts for the top two percent. We might agree on tax reform or simplification, but on the upper-income tax cuts we are just going to have to agree to disagree.'"
Many here, including myself, and Democrats in Congress have expressed a great deal of anxiety, and public fretting, that the President might have no choice but to cave into GOP threats of driving our country into a finanical collapse by being forced to sign a last minute lifting of the debt-ceiling attached to deep cuts in social spending.
Several source confirmed that the President reassured anxious Democrats that the budget,
can't be balanced on non-defense discretionary spending or the "backs of the most vulnerable." Obama added, according to the member, that, "he would not support extending the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent again no matter what hostages Republicans took."
Stein also reports that our President rebuffed Representative Henry Waxman's request for a greater display of fighting spirit. The President is reported to have responded that Congressmen can say all sort of things, but his remarks, and tone have major consequences for markets, and other countries.
This news about this afternoon's meeting of our top Democratic leadership has hints of other potentially encouraging tidbits, as well.
For example, when Obama said the budget can not be balanced with with only non-defense, discretionary spending, does this mean we might be hearing of defense spending cuts in an upcoming debt-ceiling compromise?