The juiciest passage in the Wall Street Journal’s behind-the-scenes report on the fiscal cliff negotiations comes when House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) asks President Obama whether he can have the deal he rejected in 2011. “You missed your opportunity on that,” the president replies. 
 
 Ouch. 
 
 But the most important insight into the White House’s strategic thinking comes when Boehner says to the president, ”I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?” Obama’s response is cold and telling. ”You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.” 
 
 That, right there, is the central fact of negotiations for the Democrats and the central problem for the Republicans. At the end of this year, more than $5 trillion in scheduled tax increases begin. But the White House doesn’t believe that’s real revenue. Democrats in Congress won’t permit that kind of a tax increase on ordinary Americans. The White House won’t permit that kind of a tax increase on ordinary Americans. 
 
 But they’re certain they can hold onto almost $800 billion of it. The Senate already passed a bill letting the Bush tax cuts lapse for income over $250,000. That bill is very, very popular. The White House expects that if we go over the cliff, the House will have to pass that bill, too, and the president would have little choice but to sign it. That bill raises taxes by a bit more than $700 billion, which is less than the $1.6 trillion the White House wants. But that $700 billion, to the White House, is the baseline: If they get nothing else, they will certainly get that. 
 
 And that’s why Boehner’s offer of $800 billion doesn’t impress. The White House already has some $700 billion in the bank, as they see it. The reason to negotiate with Boehner is that an agreement with him could, in theory, push that number well above $1 trillion while stabilizing the debt and avoiding the economic pain of falling off the fiscal cliff. But there’s no reason to cut a deal with Boehner in which the White House gives up spending cuts in order to get a tax increase they can have anyway. 
 
 The talk in Washington now is about a “small deal.” That would likely include the Senate tax bill, some policy to turn off at least the defense side of the sequester and a handful of other policies to blunt or delay various parts of the fiscal cliff. 
 
 That’s not a very good deal for the short-term health of the economy. Depending on how much of the fiscal cliff gets delayed, we could tip into recession anyway. But it could lead, in the end, to much more revenue than a “big deal” now. 
 
 Here’s how it would go. Some time in the next month or so, the small deal would pass and the White House would pocket that $700-plus billion in tax revenue. They really would get that for free, just as the president told Boehner. 
 
 But pressure would quickly mount to strike a larger deal, both because there would be another fiscal cliff coming and because the debt ceiling would need to be raised. (The White House swears they won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling, but it’s not exactly clear what that will mean in practice.) 
 
 The White House would insist that the next deal includes a 1:1 ratio of tax increases — all of which could come through Republican-friendly tax reform — to spending cuts. So a subsequent deal that included $600 billion or $700 billion in spending cuts would also include $600 billion or $700 billion in tax increases, leading to total new revenue in the range of $1.2 trillion to $1.4 trillion. 
 
 There’s precedent for this. After the 2010 midterms, Republicans forced the passage of the Budget Control Act, which included more than a trillion dollars in spending cuts and no offsetting tax increases. They’ve subsequently refused to count those cuts toward any future deals. If the president, after winning the 2012 election, pocketed $700 billion in tax increases and insisted that revenue was unrelated to the next negotiation, he’d simply be following Boehner’s lead. 
 
 All of which is to say, if Boehner had taken the White House’s deal in 2011, he could’ve stopped the tax increase at $800 billion. If he took their most recent deal, he could stop it at $1.2 trillion. But if he insists on adding another round to the negotiations — one that will likely come after the White House pockets $700 billion in tax increases — then any deal in which gets the entitlement cuts he wants is going to mean a deal in which he accepts even more tax increases than the White House is currently demanding. 
 
 Today, Boehner wishes he’d taken the deal the president offered him in 2011. A year from now, he might wish he’d taken the deal the president offered him in 2012. ||||| The bellowing on Capitol Hill about which side has offered more “specifics” to resolve the fiscal cliff showdown masks a larger problem for Washington: The two sides are still hundreds of billions of dollars apart on revenue and entitlement cuts. 
 
 Not to mention, Republicans and Democrats are also light-years apart on policy details that back up those budget targets. 
 
 That’s why there’s increasing skepticism in Washington that a deal actually can be reached before Jan. 1, and the country will go over the fiscal cliff. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Fiscal cliff's key players) 
 
 The reality is the two sides are swapping proposals that do little but reaffirm the positions they’ve long held. And despite hopes for progress, the two sides seem to be diverging further, according to people involved in and familiar with the talks. 
 
 On Monday, the White House made an offer to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) calling for $1.4 trillion in new tax revenue — a small downtick from their original position of $1.6 trillion. Proposed cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, sources said, stayed stuck around $600 billion. Democrats say Republicans must come to grip with tax-rate increases, and it will be smooth sailing from there. 
 
 (POLITICO's full fiscal cliff coverage) 
 
 As part of its offer, the White House committed to moving forward next year on corporate tax reform, according to a Democrat familiar with the talks. 
 
 The move on corporate tax rates — which came out as the influential Business Roundtable backed Obama on higher individual taxes on the wealthiest Americans — was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. 
 
 On Tuesday, Boehner then countered with his own offer — $800 billion in tax revenue, more than $1 trillion in spending cuts, according to sources. 
 
 Boehner’s spokesman subsequently called the White House statement on corporate tax reform “a red herring.” 
 
 “We’ve always said you need to do both, given the way they interact,” said Michael Steel. “The issue is the individual rates because of the small business jobs impact.” 
 
 Republicans are also still opposed to hiking the U.S. debt limit — or giving the president authority to do so on his own — in this package unless they get something drastic like dollar-for-dollar entitlement cuts to tax increases. 
 
 White House officials said that Obama and Boehner spoke on the phone on Tuesday, their third conversation in the past week. 
 
 Boehner’s new offer, coming only hours after he went to the House floor to bash Obama, was described by aides as a reaffirmation of the Republican position that doesn’t break dramatic new ground. 
 
 “We sent the White House a counteroffer that would achieve tax and entitlement reform to solve our looming debt crisis and create more American jobs,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said. “As the speaker said today, we’re still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make as part of the ‘balanced approach’ he promised the American people. The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff.” 
 
 The huge ideological and policy gap between Obama and Boehner explains why, in recent days, the White House and House Republicans have shown they’re unlikely to budge off their respective barricades unless the prize is very rich. 
 
 The White House and GOP leaders are accusing each other of being unreasonable and willing to go over the cliff in order to score a political victory. 
 
 House Republicans don’t have a backup plan and have no immediate plans to bring legislation to the floor to make a political point, sources said. ||||| Topics: Opening Shot, Editor's Picks, John Boehner, Barack Obama, Fiscal cliff, Politics News 
 
 Last night was hardly the first public humiliation that John Boehner has suffered at the hands of his fellow Republicans, but it’s probably the most stark. And it raises some very basic questions about the House speaker’s political future – like whether he even has one. 
 
 That Boehner had devised and pursued Plan B in the first place seemed to speak to his weak grip on the GOP conference. Boehner and President Obama had negotiated their way to within spitting distance of each other, with the president giving significant ground on his revenue demands, agreeing to a reduction in Social Security benefits, and giving up on a payroll tax holiday extension. But when word of the looming deal leaked, House Republicans let their displeasure be known, and the speaker announced that he’d instead hold a vote on a bill to extend the Bush tax rates for all income under $1 million. That was Plan B. 
 
 Exactly where Plan B fit into Boehner’s overall strategy was a matter of some debate, but he pressed hard for it and confidently predicted he had the 218 votes needed to pass it. So now we know that not only does Boehner not have sufficient support among Republicans to pass a potential compromise with Obama, he also doesn’t have the support to pass his own plan. 
 
 It’s still possible some kind of fiscal cliff deal will be completed before Jan. 1, but it’s hard to see how. Last night’s developments are a clear sign that a significant chunk of Republicans are simply committed to never voting for any kind of tax hike – even one on a tiny chunk of super-wealthy people, even when it comes with some serious concessions from the other party, and even when failing to act means that taxes will go up for everyone. 
 
 The most likely scenario now is that Jan. 1 will come and go, the Bush tax cuts will expire for all Americans, and President Obama and Democrats will then introduce a bill to restore the Bush rates for most people – maybe using the $250,000 income threshold that Obama stuck with until this week. Maybe then, when the vote really would be for a tax cut, Republicans will sign off on it. But for now, that’s not where they are.
– The Wall Street Journal has what it bills as a "behind scenes" look at how the fiscal cliff talks went sour this week—on Monday, to be precise—and a few passages stand out to suggest relations between the president and House Republicans may have actually gotten worse since the election: Boehner to Obama: "I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?' Obama to Boehner: "You get nothing. I get that for free." At another point, Boehner told the president he wanted a deal similar to the one he rejected during their debt ceiling talks of 2011. "You missed your opportunity on that," replied the president. Eventually, an "irritated" Boehner decided to move ahead with his Plan B even while keeping the broader deal on the table. It was a decision that "incensed" the president. (Boehner eventually had to call off the vote anyway.) Read the full Journal story here. At Politico, Mike Allen says it's mostly a "rehash" of old news. But Ezra Klein at the Washington Post thinks the "I get that for free" exchange is "the central fact of negotiations for the Democrats and the central problem for the Republicans." Read his full explanation here of why Democrats think the $800 billion figure isn't what it seems. The talks, meanwhile, remain in limbo until after Christmas, when the best hope will be that the two sides can agree on a scaled-down, temporary plan.