Despite gap, super committee Republicans warm to new revenue, but not taxes

Super committee Republicans are warming to the idea of finding new Medicare premium revenues to help bridge the still-wide gap between themselves and Democrats over deficit reduction proposals, but they aren't budging on their opposition to tax increases.

The Associated Press: Congress Sputters On Deficit Cuts, Spending Bills
A sputtering Congress enveloped in an atmosphere poisoned with politics and distrust enters its final weeks of the year struggling to complete a lengthy to-do list on the budget. The so-called deficit super committee is hung up over taxes, raising real doubts it will succeed in its assignment of cutting deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. ... Without new revenues, Democrats are unwilling to cut Medicare or impose a new inflation measure to reduce annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries (Taylor, 11/8).

Politico: Republicans Put Revenue In The Mix
A remarkable thing has happened on the way to the super committee deadline: Republicans are beating the "we-want-more-revenue" drum. ... Republicans believe they can raise revenues -; and not taxes -; on several fronts. First, there's talk about raising Medicare premiums for high-income seniors (Sherman and Kim, 11/7).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.