White House optimistic about cliff deal Barack Obama's top spokesman said the president believed a deal could be reached to avert the fiscal cliff and that he was willing to meet Republican demands for cuts to government healthcare programmes, but criticised Republicans for not offering a detailed plan on new revenue. "While there has been encouraging statements from individual lawmakers about the realisation that rates will go up on the top 2 per cent, we haven't seen anything specific from Republicans with regard to that," said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. The comments came one day after a meeting between Mr Obama and John Boehner, the Republican leader, at the White House. Although both sides maintained that the lines of communication remained open, there was fresh finger-pointing among the parties, suggesting the gulf in the negotiations remained wide. A spokesman for Mr Boehner refused to divulge details of the talks, but said on Monday: "The Republican offer made last week remains the Republican offer, and we continue to wait for the president to identify the spending cuts he's willing to make as part of the "balanced" approach he promised the American people." Mr Carney contradicted that statement, however, saying Mr Obama was "the only party that has put forward a plan that has specificity on both the spending and revenue side." He added: "We have not seen in any detail from the Republicans . . . the kind of detail that would allow us to assess the proposal to say for example on revenue that we can achieve $800bn." Mr Carney said the offer fell "far, far short" of the necessary increase in tax revenue that would be required for a deal that would reduce the deficit by a targeted $4tn. He called on the House of Representatives to vote on an extension of Bush era tax breaks for the middle class before the year-end, which would in effect raise tax rates from 35 to 39.6 per cent for families making more than $250,000 a year. A handful of top Republicans are giving up their opposition to higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. Bob Corker, a senior Republican senator from Tennessee, said on Sunday that he believed that agreeing to Mr Obama's demand for an increase in tax rates was "the best route for us to take." The comments come as Capitol Hill approaches a Christmas without much merriment, and some staffers were told to expect to be at work on December 24 with little prospect of a deal taking shape sooner. For now there have been no signs of panic in the markets, but that stability could begin to be tested by the end of this week if there are no concrete signs of progress. The US president is continuing his public campaign in favour of a deal that raises tax rates on the rich to the public with a trip on Monday to a Daimler plant in Michigan.