Speaker John Boehner said President Barack Obama must accept entitlement cuts and no tax increases in order to obtain a debt-ceiling increase from Congress, once again taking a hardline as GOP and Democratic congressional leaders head to the White House for talks on averting a U.S. debt default. 
 
 Boehner’s comments came after Obama repeatedly praised Boehner in his own press conference this morning for being willing to explore a “grand bargain” that would cut spending on popular entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in return for as much as $1 trillion in new revenue. Boehner pulled out of those one-on-one discussions with Obama on Saturday after coming under criticism from conservative lawmakers and activists, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). 
 
 Text Size - 
 
 + 
 
 reset VIDEO: Boehner firm on taxes Echo Chamber: Digging in on debt POLITICO 44 
 
 “Our disagreements are not personal, they never have been,” Boehner told reporters on Monday afternoon. “The gulf between the two parties now is about policy. It’s not about process, it’s not about personalities.” 
 
 Boehner added: “The president and I do not agree on his view that the government needs more revenues through taxes on job creators. The president and I also disagree on the extent of the entitlement problem and what is necessary in order to solve it.” 
 
 Boehner insisted that “the House cannot pass a bill that raise taxes on job creators. The House can only pass a debt-limit with spending cuts larger than a hike in the debt limit, as well as real restraints on future spending.” 
 
 The Ohio Republican also called for passage of a balanced-budget amendment. That proposal will be taken up by the House next week. 
 
 “This boil downs to two things - the president insists on raising taxes, and they’re just not serious enough fundamental entitlement reform to solve the problem for the near and intermediate future… It takes two to tango, and they’re just not there yet.” 
 
 Boehner denied ever discussing any tax increases during his private talks with Obama, a position that he and his aides have repeatedly stated since pulling the plug on those negotiations last weekend. Boehner said his idea was to simplify and reduce tax rates, which would result in new economic growth and more revenue for the federal government. Boehner clearly would prefer that alternative, but opposition from Cantor and Senate Republicans forced Boehner to retreat on such an agreement. ||||| House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that when Congress raises the nation's borrowing cap he will again insist on spending cuts and budget reforms to offset the increase. 
 
 House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio speaks at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's 2012 Fiscal Summit, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (Associated Press) 
 
 House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, speaks at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's 2012 Fiscal Summit, Tuesday, May 15, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (Associated Press) 
 
 In remarks Tuesday afternoon at a budget conference in Washington, the Ohio Republican said he welcomes another wrenching debate on increasing the so-called debt limit because it forces a Congress and White House plagued by gridlock to make difficult decisions. 
 
 Boehner also said that the GOP-controlled House will vote to extend Bush-era tax cuts due to expire at the end of the year and that the House will act next year on "broad-based tax reform that lowers rates for individuals and businesses while closing deductions, credits and special carveouts." 
 
 According to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the government will hit its borrowing cap later this year, but Treasury can use accounting maneuvers to buy time for the newly elected Congress to deal with the issue early next year. 
 
 About a year ago, Boehner made a similar promise demanding spending cuts spread over a decade exceed the amount of increase in the debt limit, which at the time was discounted by some in official Washington. 
 
 "When the time comes, I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase," Boehner said at a "budget summit" sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates tackling the nation's debt problem. "This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance." 
 
 Asked whether President Barack Obama agreed that any increase in the debt ceiling should be offset by spending cuts, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that scenario would present an ugly repeat of last year when Republicans held the U.S. government credit "hostage," as Carney put it. 
 
 "It can't possibly be the case that the right prescription for what we need to do right now is to engage in the kind of political brinksmanship that, unfortunately, congressional Republicans engaged in last year," Carney said. "So we're not going to do that." 
 
 Yet it was unclear how the White House could prevent it if the Republican-led Congress again insists on commensurate cuts. Carney said Obama would again demand balancing spending cuts with an increase in tax revenue, which Republicans have rejected. 
 
 Boehner said it may take one or more stopgap debt increases to buy time for a larger bargain. 
 
 Last year, Congress and Obama _ with Boehner playing a lead role _ agreed on a 10-year, $2 trillion-plus package of spending cuts the coming decade. The measure paired caps on domestic agency operating budgets with the promise of $1.2 trillion in further deficit cuts though a so-called deficit supercommittee. 
 
 But the supercommittee's failure to reach a deal has forced a scheduled painful round of automatic spending cuts at the Pentagon and other Cabinet agencies next year, along with a 2 percent cut to Medicare providers. Lawmakers are already trying to unwind those cuts, which take effect in January. 
 
 Boehner seemed to warn that he won't permit such a scheme this time around. 
 
 "Just so we're clear, I'm talking about real cuts and reforms _ not these tricks and gimmicks that have given Washington a pass on grappling with its spending," he said. 
 
 Geithner warned against a replay of last summer's debt crisis, which led to a downgrade in the U.S. government's credit rating. 
 
 "This commitment to meet the obligations of the nation, this commitment to protect the creditworthiness of the country is a fundamental commitment you can never call into question or violate because it's the foundation for any market economy," Geithner said Tuesday morning at the same event. "This allows us to govern, to fight wars, to deal with crises, recessions, to adjust to a changing world." ||||| WASHINGTON—Congressional leaders and President Barack Obama called Friday for a return to negotiations to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, a day after talks cratered in a very public fashion when Republicans abandoned House Speaker John Boehner's backup plan. 
 
 In truth, talks to secure a big deficit-reduction deal had already broken down Monday afternoon in the office of Mr. Boehner (R., Ohio), a Wall Street Journal reconstruction shows. Mr. Boehner had been negotiating a deal with the White House to let tax rates rise for upper-income people. 
 
 Mr. Boehner, irritated with the White House, was finding it hard to keep his troops in line as details of his negotiations with Mr. Obama leaked out. In the speaker's office just off the Capitol's majestic rotunda that afternoon, he told his top lieutenants that he was already thinking about a pared-down backup plan. "In the absence of an agreement, 'Plan B' is the plan," he told his deputies, according to a script he read them that afternoon. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Charles Dharapak/Associated Press President Barack Obama, pictured, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor failed to see eye to eye on talks to resolve the looming fiscal deficit, which broke down this week amid growing acrimony on both sides 
 
 Enlarge Image Close AP Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor 
 
 Enlarge Image Close J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press Eric Cantor 
 
 One by one, they came out in favor of Plan B and against the broader deal. 
 
 House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) said the new tax revenue the broader plan called for was too high. Then Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), whom Mr. Boehner had spent weeks wooing, said he couldn't sign on because it didn't make structural changes in entitlements. 
 
 The speaker went ahead with Plan B, which collapsed Thursday night before he could even bring it to a vote, leaving talks at a perilous standstill just days before the year-end fiscal-cliff deadline. Even if an agreement can be reached by then, both sides expect it to be a small package doing little to tackle the long-term budget woes and deferring the battle until next year. 
 
 A review of the negotiations, based on interviews with a dozen aides and lawmakers, suggests the problems lay in Mr. Boehner's inability to coax his rank-and-file to support a deal that raises taxes on higher-income Americans. Another factor was what Republicans saw as President Obama's unwillingness to bend when a deal was in sight, jamming the speaker with a deal his party couldn't swallow. 
 
 The negotiations offer little evidence November's election brought the president and House Republicans closer together. If anything, the talks poisoned an already distrustful relationship. 
 
 Mr. Boehner could soon face a decision whether to call for a vote on some sort of plan that could avert the cliff's spending cuts and tax increases but might imperil his position if he had to rely on Democrats to pass it. 
 
 Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn't reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault. 
 
 Falling Over the Fiscal Cliff See some scenarios for how different groups of people may be affected by the tax changes that will take place if the fiscal cliff isn't resolved by the Jan. 1., 2013, deadline. View Interactive Tracking Dividends Investors are seeing a jump in the number of companies making big one-time payouts to stem a possible increase to the dividend-tax rate. See which companies have announced special dividends. View Interactive More photos and interactive graphics 
 
 At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, "I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?" 
 
 "You get nothing," the president said. "I get that for free." 
 
 After the election, Boehner aides tried to shape the debate by offering early concessions, including that the GOP would agree to raise new tax revenue. A speech Mr. Boehner planned to give was rewritten 18 times and included input from top Republican leaders. 
 
 He and Mr. Obama didn't sit down together for another 10 days. The session began genially. But tension quickly emerged over the president's call to include increasing the U.S.'s borrowing limit in any final package. 
 
 Responded Mr. Boehner: "I've found in my life that everything I've ever wanted has come with price." 
 
 Mr. Obama told the speaker he wasn't willing to play games with the debt ceiling. 
 
 Staffs got to work on the outline of a deal. In their first offer, Republicans wanted to essentially preserve Bush-era rates set to expire Dec. 31 while raising some new revenue through a tax overhaul in 2013. The White House made clear it wouldn't agree to a plan that didn't raise some tax rates immediately. 
 
 Brett Loper, the speaker's top policy aide, prodded White House officials to look for tax revenue elsewhere. In phone calls and meetings, he steered them to tax shelters and suggested limiting deductions for tax-exempt municipal bonds. 
 
 National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling told Mr. Loper it was impossible to hit revenue targets without raising tax rates. 
 
 At one point, Mr. Loper said, "I'm asking you for help. Are you going to help me or not?" 
 
 Last August, President Obama and Congress put the U.S. economy on course to go over a "fiscal cliff." WSJ's David Wessel tells you everything you need to know about the "cliff" but were afraid to ask. 
 
 Stocks sank as investors confronted a new level of budget disarray in Washington, but the market was on pace to notch gains for the last full trading week of the year. Brendan Conway has details on The News Hub. Photo: Associated Press. 
 
 Political analyst Charlie Cook looks back on the year in politics. WSJ reporters assess the state of the fiscal cliff talks and discuss the chances of gun control legislation in the wake of the school shootings in Connecticut. 
 
 The quest to avert the fiscal cliff is as uncertain as ever after rival plans were rejected. WSJ reporters break down how the negotiations will play out from this point on. 
 
 Paul Vigna discusses the market fallout from the collapse of a fiscal-cliff deal in Washington with Damian Paletta and Steven Russolillo. Photo: Getty Images. 
 
 Clemency Burton-Hill discusses the latest on the fiscal-cliff negotiations with Andrew Ackerman, and Jack Nicas looks at the millions of mental-health records missing from gun-dealer databases. Photo: AP. 
 
 Shortly after, aides to Mr. Boehner suggested he call the president. 
 
 Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady on the failure of Boehner's Plan B. Photo: Pool 
 
 Mr. Obama insisted on raising tax rates for those with household income above $250,000. The House GOP wanted significant spending cuts and fundamental changes to Medicare and other entitlement programs in exchange for new tax revenue. 
 
 The president repeatedly reminded Mr. Boehner of the election results: "You're asking me to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan. Why would I do that?" At another point, the speaker noted his GOP majority would also return next year. 
 
 The White House's first formal offer, presented Nov. 29 left Mr. Boehner incredulous. It included a request for $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenue over 10 years, a permanent increase in the debt ceiling and money for road projects and other year-end priorities. In return it offered spending cuts of $400 billion—25 cents for each dollar in new revenue. 
 
 Taking a drag on his cigarette, Mr. Boehner asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who had presented the plan, a number of questions but didn't fully engage him. Across the Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky) said he laughed at the offer. 
 
 The same sticking points kept rearing up—the White House insisting on more tax revenue than Republicans could stomach, and the Republicans demanding deeper cuts than the White House would accept. 
 
 During one session in the Capitol with White House's legislative liaison Rob Nabors, Mr. Loper from the Boehner camp asked, referring to a near-deal during last year's debt-ceiling fight: "Can you get back into the zone of where you were in July 2011?" 
 
 "No," Mr. Nabors replied. "We were probably overextended then, and there's no way we would do it now." 
 
 Mr. Nabors said if they couldn't reach a deal, they should keep lines of communication alive. The typically serious Mr. Loper asked, "So, you're breaking up with us?" 
 
 On Dec. 13, Mr. Boehner went to the White House at the president's request, joking he was going to the woodshed. 
 
 The president told him he could choose one of two doors. The first represented a big deal. If Mr. Boehner chose it, the president said, the country and financial markets would cheer. Door No. 2 represented a spike in interest rates and a global recession. 
 
 Mr. Boehner said he wanted a deal along the lines of what the two men had negotiated in the summer of 2011 in a fight over raising the debt ceiling. "You missed your opportunity on that," the president told him. 
 
 That night, the speaker and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) decided to make the biggest concession so far. 
 
 As the country the next day digested news of a brutal school shooting in Connecticut, Mr. Boehner called the president and for the first time offered to let tax rates rise—on income above $1 million. The president acknowledged the concession but said Mr. Boehner's plan wasn't raising enough revenue. 
 
 News broke the next night both about the concession and that the speaker was willing to extend the borrowing limit. On Sunday, the White House sent a plane to fly Mr. Boehner back to Washington for a morning appointment with the president on Monday, the day it now appears the deal fell apart. 
 
 In that session, the president held firm for $1.2 trillion in additional tax revenue, a second step down from his original offer. Mr. Boehner asked for another $100 billion in spending cuts but couldn't get a commitment. 
 
 Finally, the speaker said, "Well, you and I can sit here and stare at each other," or he could leave and they would talk later. 
 
 Back in the Capitol, Mr. Boehner told Mr. Cantor the president wasn't moving. They agreed to call him. On the call, Mr. Boehner restated he needed $1 in spending cuts for every $1 in revenue raised. He dropped a prior demand to increase the Medicare eligibility age. 
 
 The president told Mr. Boehner that he was willing to make some concessions on taxes and spending, but cautioned that they needed to retain Democratic votes for the bill to pass. 
 
 The speaker raised the prospect of moving a backup bill. White House officials said Mr. Boehner didn't reveal what Plan B comprised. Administration officials expected a few more days of back-and-forth, but the speaker thought the prospects were dim for a big deal. 
 
 Meeting with his leadership team in the afternoon, Mr. Boehner read from a script prepared by his staff, telling lawmakers he still wanted a big deal but the rank and file needed to know the plan by a 9 a.m. conference meeting the next morning, Tuesday. He encouraged his colleagues to accept the backup plan. 
 
 "I'm going to keep the proposal on the table," he said of the broader deal. "As I told the president, I'm not making an ultimatum. The offer stays on the table, even if we move on Plan B." 
 
 His lieutenants made clear they preferred Plan B to the one Mr. Boehner was trying to broker. 
 
 The speaker called the president with news the House would move ahead with the backup bill, which would preserve Bush-era rates for all income below $1 million. The president was incensed. 
 
 As the week progressed, support didn't materialize, with some GOP members complaining that the bill raised taxes and others that it didn't have enough spending cuts. Mr. Boehner pulled it Thursday night and read the Serenity Prayer to members, whom he then dismissed. 
 
 On Friday afternoon, the president spoke to both Mr. Boehner and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid in a bid to resurrect a deal. Soon afterward he left the White House for his annual family vacation in Hawaii. 
 
 Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared December 22, 2012, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: How 'Cliff' Talks Hit the Wall.
– John Boehner stuck to his guns in a press conference today, offering precious little hope that a debt ceiling deal was anywhere close to getting done. He thanked Barack Obama for praising his "good-faith effort," but said it mattered little. “Our disagreements are not personal,” he said, according to Politico. “They never have been. The gulf between the two parties now is about policy.” “This boil downs to two things: The president insists on raising taxes, and they’re just not serious enough [about] fundamental entitlement reform,” Boehner said. “It takes two to tango, and they’re just not there yet.” Boehner said he did fundamentally agree that the debt limit needed to rise, the AP reports. But he said the bill could only pass the House if it included an even larger amount of spending cuts.