By KEN THOMAS
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - President
Barack Obama is lobbying business and labor groups to support $1.6
trillion in new revenue to avoid an impending fiscal cliff, telling the
two sides he remains committed to requiring the wealthy to pay more in
taxes.
Obama was meeting Wednesday
with about a dozen business executives as the White House and Congress
face a series of expiring tax cuts and across-the-board spending cuts
scheduled to take effect because lawmakers failed to reach a deal to
reduce the federal debt. Business groups want an agreement before the
end of the year, warning that the uncertainty could roil the financial
markets and harm the economic recovery.
White House press secretary
Jay Carney said the president would bring to the table a proposal for
$1.6 trillion in new taxes on business and the wealthy when he begins
discussions with congressional Republicans, a figure that Obama outlined
in his most recent budget plan. The targeted revenue is twice the
amount Obama discussed with Republican leaders during debt talks during
the summer of 2011.
Carney said the figure,
combined with $1.1 trillion in spending cuts already signed into law,
would reduce deficits by $4 trillion.
The White House meeting
with CEOs follows a gathering of labor leaders and liberal groups
Tuesday in which participants said Obama remained clear that he would
push for his campaign pledge of making the wealthiest Americans pay more
in taxes.
"We're prepared to stand up
to make sure there is shared sacrifice here, so the rich actually start
paying their fair share and the middle class don't get soaked for
that," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Obama was expected to speak
in greater detail on the year-ending lame-duck session of Congress at a
White House news conference Wednesday. Failure to act would lead to
spending cuts and higher taxes on all Americans, with middle-income
families paying an average of about $2,000 more next year, according to
the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Sen. Dick Durbin of
Illinois, part of the Democratic leadership team, said Wednesday that
many "many Republicans believe now is the time to sit down and talk more
revenue." Durbin said the number of GOP lawmakers in the Senate willing
to work toward accommodation now totals 20.
But Durbin also said "there
is a great distance" between Republicans in the House and Senate, "and
basically it comes down to the question of whether Speaker (John)
Boehner is willing to look for a bipartisan solution."
Durbin told MSNBC he thinks
lawmakers should "use this fiscal cliff" to resolve a problem that has
plagued Congress for four years.
The president pledged to
raise taxes on the rich during his first term but backed off his stance
in late 2010 after Republicans seized control of the House in the
midterm election. During his meeting with labor leaders, Obama said he
was not going to bend on letting tax cuts expire for top wage earners,
according to a participant in the meeting who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss the private session. The president said the tax
issue was clear during the election and said he had extended those
enacted during the George W. Bush administration once and would not do
so again, the participant said.
The CEOs have urged
Congress to extend the Bush-era tax cuts until a tax overhaul can be
reached and prevent the spending cuts from taking place. The executives
say the uncertainty over the fiscal cliff is hurting the nation's
business climate and preventing hiring.
Obama will meet with several CEOs, including the heads of Aetna, Honeywell, Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and Ford.
The participants include
members of the Campaign to Fix the Debt, a group founded by Alan Simpson
and Erskine Bowles that has pushed for a long-term plan to fix the
nation's debt and deficits.
Simpson, a former Wyoming
senator, and Bowles, a former White House chief of staff, served as
co-chairs of Obama's bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility and Reform, which proposed $3 in spending cuts for every
$1 in additional revenues.
Among the CEOs attending
the meeting are General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, who chairs Obama's
jobs council, and American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault and Xerox CEO
Ursula Burns, who are members of the council.
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2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
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