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Barack Obama

Geithner: No deal without higher tax rates on rich

USATODAY
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed President Obama on Sunday, saying there won't be a fiscal cliff deal with Republicans without higher taxes on the wealthy.

"There's not going to be an agreement without rates going up," Geithner said on CNN's State of the Union, one of a series of talk show appearances he made on Sunday.

Geithner noted that Obama is offering the debt reduction deal he campaigned on, including an elimination of the George W. Bush tax cuts for Americans who make more than $250,000 a year.

Republicans say they will agree to more government revenues through elimination of tax loopholes, but not through an increase in tax rates they say will slow the economy.

Both parties face the prospect next year of the so-called "fiscal cliff," a series of tax hikes and budget cuts that affect all Americans in the absence of a debt reduction agreement.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told Fox News Sunday that "the White House has spent three weeks (since the election) doing basically nothing," and that its pending offer emphasizes tax hikes while lacking specifics about spending cuts.

Obama and his team "won the election," Boehner said, but "they must have forgotten that Republicans continue to hold a majority in the House."

Raising tax rates "hurts our economy, hurts the prospects for more jobs in our country," Boehner said.

The White House has said that Obama will veto any fiscal proposal that does not eliminate the Bush tax rates for the wealthy. They also stress that, without an agreement, all the Bush tax rates expire on Dec. 31 and all Americans will see tax hikes.

Geithner carried the president's message to all five major Sunday talk shows.

The Treasury secretary downplayed Republican objections to the president's plan. He noted that GOP leaders are in a tough position with their more conservative members, but predicted that enough party members would eventually sign on to a deal that includes higher tax rates on the nation's wealthiest citizens.

"There's going to be a lot of political theater between now and when we get there," Geither said on CNN.

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