Cantor: We Dragged Obama 'Kicking and Screaming'

According to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, President Obama had to be dragged “kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending,” he said on Fox News Sunday. Cantor says White House senior adviser David Plouffe is being dishonest in his claim that Obama was the one leading that discussion, Politico reports. Elsewhere on the Sunday dial:

• The president will make a major budget address Wednesday. He will lay out “his approach to long-term deficit reduction,” David Plouffe said on Meet the Press, adding that the president’s 2012 budget includes a plan to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade. Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Schumer said on Face the Nation that details on the spending cuts included in the budget deal will be posted online tomorrow.

• As Plouffe was charging that not raising the debt ceiling would be a “catastrophic failure,” Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions was on Face the Nation countering that, “The president just can’t waltz in and say we’re going to have a debt crisis if we don’t raise the debt limit … He’s going to have to meet Congress halfway—really the American people halfway.” John Boehner, meanwhile, told donors this weekend that “there will not be an increase in the debt limit without something really, really big attached to it.”
• The president still wants to raise taxes on the rich, Plouffe said. “He has said he believes taxes on the higher income—people over $250,000—should eventually go up. … I think the president’s goal—and he's been clear about this—is to protect the middle class as we move forward here.”

(More Sunday morning talk shows stories.)