THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
a means of extracting even more
from the administration.
For months, the administration
believed that the debt ceiling fight
would ultimately be resolved with
only moderate drama. For all the
talk of a frosty relationship between the president and Boehner,
top White House aides considered
the Ohio Republican a reasonable
individual amidst a caucus of crazy.
On June 24, 2011, the staffs to the
president and the speaker held the
first in a series of secret meetings
to hammer out a grand bargain.
With barely any input from fellow Democrats, Obama placed sacred cow after sacred cow on the
block: massive cuts to discretion-
HUFFINGTON 09.09.12
Obama points to
Senate Banking
Committee Chairman
Chris Dodd (D-CT)
and House Financial
Services Committee
Chairman Barney
Frank (D-MA) after
signing the financial
reform bill into law.
ary spending ($1.2 trillion over 10
years), gradual changes to the retirement age for Medicare, changes
the premium structure for Medicare Part B and D and changes to
the way Social Security benefits
were paid starting in 2015. In exchange, the White House demanded
$800 billion in revenue increases.
As negotiations continued in
private, pitfalls emerged on the
Hill. A group of senators known
as the Gang of Six began reviving
their own debt-reduction formula.
It had similar features to the deal
Obama and Boehner were laying
out, but also called for roughly
$1.2 trillion more in revenues.
Those Democrats who were
bound to have been angered with
the president’s proposal, would
be apoplectic now, knowing how