Geithner Says Obama to Seek Biggest Deficit Cut Possible

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Sunday that President Obama would continue to press for the largest deficit reduction possible in negotiations with Congressional leaders over raising the government’s debt ceiling, adding that “it’s not clear that it’s easier trying to do less.”
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The remarks came after House Speaker John A. Boehner released a statement Saturday night saying he was pulling back from efforts for a deal that would reduce the deficit by as much as $4 trillion over 10 years. Mr. Boehner said he would instead focus on crafting a smaller package more in line with the $2 trillion to $3 trillion in spending cuts and revenue increases negotiated earlier by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

On the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Mr. Geithner said the main problem in the negotiations was the Republican insistence that any deal involve only spending cuts and no tax increases.

“And as you saw on the Ryan budget,” he said, referring to a plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, that would cut entitlement programs, “if you try to do it with just cuts, you’re putting unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for Medicare beneficiaries in the future and you can’t do that politically, and it’s unfair to do it.”

Top Republicans reiterated Sunday that they would not accept a deal that included increased taxes. On “Fox News Sunday,” the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that he was “for the biggest deal possible, too, it’s just that we’re not going to raise taxes in the middle of this horrible economic situation.”

Although Republican presidential candidates like Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, have said that raising the debt ceiling would be a mistake no matter what deal is struck, Mr. McConnell said on Sunday that “nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. I haven’t heard that discussed by anybody.”

Mr. McConnell said that he had a “contingency plan” for raising the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 deadline, when the Treasury Department has said the government would begin defaulting on some debt. He said he would reveal his plan later this week if negotiations with the White House fail.

Although some Republicans have questioned whether the United States would truly run out of borrowing authority on Aug. 2, Mr. Geithner repeated Sunday that the date is a true deadline.

“I have to write 80 million checks a month to Americans, including 55 million Americans who depend on their Social Security check,” Mr. Geithner said on “Face the Nation.” “We have to make principal payments or roll over $500 billion of debt in the month of August, about $87 billion in that first week in August.”

“If they don’t act, then we face catastrophic damage to the American economy and the leadership, to their credit, and I mean Republicans and Democrats, fully understand that,” Mr. Geithner added.

He said the outlines of a deal would need to be completed by this week “and certainly by the end of next week” in order to provide enough time for Congress to pass legislation before the deadline.