Republicans pull out of debt talks, demand Obama meet directly with GOP over taxes

By Lori Montgomery,
WashPost
Updated: Thursday, June 23, 8:07 PM

Congressional Republicans abruptly pulled out of debt-reduction talks with the White House on Thursday and demanded that President Obama meet directly with GOP leaders to resolve an impasse over taxes.

With the clock ticking toward an Aug. 2 deadline, senior Republicans said negotiations led by Vice President Biden had ceased making headway as congressional Democrats pressed for as much as $400 billion in new taxes on corporations and the nation’s wealthiest households.

“We’ve known from the beginning that tax hikes would be a poison pill to any debt-reduction proposal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Those who are proposing them now either know this or they need to realize it quickly.”

In a joint statement with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), his representative in the talks, McConnell said: “President Obama needs to decide between his goal of higher taxes, or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit. He can’t have both.”

(More here.)