Boehner: Obama fiscal cliff offer bad for economy

This Nov. 16, 2012, photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, speaks to reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama’s re-election has stiffened Democrats’ spine against cutting popular benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security. Their new resolve could become as big a hurdle to reaching a deal for skirting economy-crippling tax increases and spending cuts in January as Republicans’ resistance raising tax rates on the wealthy. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

This Nov. 16, 2012, photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, speaks to reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama’s re-election has stiffened Democrats’ spine against cutting popular benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security. Their new resolve could become as big a hurdle to reaching a deal for skirting economy-crippling tax increases and spending cuts in January as Republicans’ resistance raising tax rates on the wealthy. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner says President Barack Obama's proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff by boosting revenue by $1.6 trillion over the next decade would be a "crippling blow" to the economy and leave the nation's debt problems unresolved.

He says bargaining between administration officials and congressional leaders has gone "almost nowhere."

Even so, the Ohio Republican said Friday that he wants to continue working with the president to avoid hundreds of billions in tax increases and spending cuts that will begin in January unless negotiators find a way to head them off.

In visits on Thursday to congressional leaders, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner presented the administration proposal. Besides tax boosts, it also called for fresh spending to help the jobless, and savings next year from benefit programs.

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