A Big Disconnect As 'fiscal Cliff' Clock Ticks

ANDREW TAYLOR

WASHINGTON (AP) ⿿ Republicans' newfound willingness to consider tax increases to avert the "fiscal cliff" comes with a significant caveat: larger cuts than Democrats seem willing to consider to benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the president's health care overhaul.

The disconnect on benefit programs, coupled with an impasse between Republicans and the White House over raising tax rates on upper-bracket earners, paints a bleak picture as the clock ticks toward a year-end fiscal debacle of automatic tax increases and harsh cuts to the Pentagon and domestic programs.

Democrats emboldened by the election are moving in the opposite direction from the GOP on curbing spending, refusing to look at cuts that were on the bargaining table just last year. Those include any changes to Social Security, even though President Barack Obama was willing back then to consider cuts in future benefits through lower cost-of-living increases. Obama also considered raising the eligibility age for Medicare, an idea that most Democrats oppose.

"I haven't seen any suggestions on what they're going to do on spending," a frustrated Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday. "There's a certain cockiness that I've seen that is really astounding to me since we're basically in the same position we were before."

Well, says Obama's most powerful ally on Capitol Hill, the Democrats are willing to tackle spending on entitlement programs if Republicans agree to raise income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans ⿿ a nonstarter with Republicans still in control of the House.

"We hope that they can agree to the tax revenue that we're talking about, and that is rate increases, and as the president's said on a number of occasions, we'll be happy to deal with entitlements," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday.

But Reid speaks only in the most general terms, wary of publicly embracing specific ideas like boosting Medicare premiums or raising the program's eligibility age.

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