A top adviser to President Barack Obama said Sunday that more revenue must be part of any long-term deficit deal that the administration strikes with Republicans in Congress.
"We are going to require more revenues," David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager in 2008, told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week."
The fiscal cliff deal hammered out shortly after New Year's Day raised tax rates on roughly the top 1 percent of earners, prompting GOP leaders to declare that the tax issue was settled.
Pushing back against Republicans seeking cuts to entitlements and domestic programs, however, Plouffe said the next deficit deal should close tax loopholes that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) previously floated as a way to raise revenue.
"John Boehner himself said he thought there was $800 billion in revenue from closing loopholes," Plouffe said. "We dealt with the tax rate issue. Now it's about loopholes."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took a similar tack earlier this month, when she said the fiscal cliff tax hikes were only a start and that Democratic lawmakers would seek to close "unfair" tax loopholes in the coming negotiations.
On Sunday, Plouffe said that the president had gone far to compromise with Republicans during the deficit talks, and that GOP leaders in Congress needed to be willing to meet him somewhere in the middle.
"The barrier to progress isn't our position or the president," Plouffe said. "We've moved more than half way, which is a fair definition of compromise."
House Republicans are expected to vote next week on a three-month extension of the debt ceiling. Plouffe said the administration would prefer to see a long-term solution but found the new plan a welcome development.
"We don't think short term is the way to go about this, but this is a departure for them," he said of House Republicans.
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