Boehner Breaks Silence on Fiscal Cliff Negotiations After Closed Door Meeting with Obama

After a meeting behind closed doors with President Obama on the contentious fiscal cliff over the weekend, House Speaker John Boehner broke his silence on the negotiations on Tuesday, and he is displeased with the progress.

Where are the president's spending cuts?" Boehner said. "When is the president going to get serious?"

"The longer the White House slow walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff," he said.

While details of the weekend meeting haven't been released, the White House contends that it is the Republicans who aren't being serious about the negotiations.

"The irony of this is that the White House offer had very specific cuts, the GOP counteroffer had almost none," tweeted White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi shot back at Boehner during the House session. "Where are the revenues?" she asked. "The Republicans refuse to touch one hair on the head of the wealthiest people in our country."

At issue is the country's federal deficit, which stands at about $1 trillion for 2012. The Republicans and Democrats must reach a compromise to close the deficit and begin shrinking the federal debt-currently around $16 trillion-in order to avoid the fiscal cliff, a series of automatic tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts that go into effect on the first of the year.

The Bush era tax cuts expire at the end of the year, and Republicans want to extend them indefinitely. President Obama and the Democrats also want to extend them, but only for the 98 percent of Americans who make less than $250,000 a year.

The wealthy, they say, should shoulder more of the financial burden. Republicans say that punishes success and will hurt the economy.

Republicans have agreed that revenue needs to increase, though they are insisting that new funds come only from closing tax loopholes and deductions, most of which are very popular with the middle class, e.g. the child tax credit, the mortgage interest deduction and deductions for charitable giving to non-profit organizations or churches.

Both sides also agree that spending cuts are necessary, but Republicans want to preserve funding for defense and the military, while Democrats want to Social Security, Medicare and health care off the table, and only small cuts to social and entitlement programs.

Obama has been adamant that no deal will pass muster unless it includes a tax hike for wealthier Americans, back to the levels they paid during the boom years of the Clinton presidency. However, he has said that he is willing to compromise on how high those taxes go and how many wealthy people are affected by them.

Republicans have yet to return with specifics.