Obama: GOP debt limit not "sustainable"

CBS News reports

President Obama said Wednesday that the Republican position that they will not accept any tax increases as part of a deal to increase the debt limit is not "sustainable," adding, "everybody else has been willing to move off their maximalist position; they need to do the same."

Mr. Obama said Democrats have already taken on their "sacred cows" in the negotiations, including accepting spending cuts that hurt their constituencies and an openness to "look at" entitlement programs. Yet Republicans, he said, have refused to break from their opposition to tax increases for "corporate jet owners" and oil companies.

"If everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that, 'The tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we're not willing to come to the table and get a deal done,' or, 'We're so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist, that's the reason we're not going to come to a deal,'" he said. "I don't think that's a sustainable position."

Mr. Obama predicted "we will reach a deal" to raise the debt limit, adding that his "expectation is that they'll do the responsible thing."

Added the president: "Look, I think that what we've seen in negotiations here in Washington is a lot of people say a lot of things to satisfy their base or to get on cable news, but that, hopefully, leaders at a certain point rise to the occasion and they do the right thing for the American people."

"And that's what I expect to happen this time," he continued. "Call me naive, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead."
"Every single observer who's not an elected official, who's not a politician, says we can't reduce our deficit in the scale and scope that we need to without having a balanced approach that looks at everything," he said, adding, "You can't reduce the deficit to the levels that it needs to be reduced without having some revenue in the mix."

"And the revenue we're talking about isn't coming out of the pockets of middle-class families that are struggling, it's coming out of folks who are doing extraordinarily well and who are enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born," he said.