President Obama calling for a debt limit 'summit' now

I’m not sure I buy the WSJ’s lead sentence on the story. Don’t leaders typically call for “summits” with enemies, not just political opposites across the aisle?

President Barack Obama called a budget-deficit summit Thursday at the White House, suggesting he and congressional leaders are moving closer to a deal that would clear the way for a vote to raise the government’s borrowing limit and avoid default.

Mr. Obama, speaking at the White House on Tuesday, said he and congressional leaders in both parties made progress over the July 4th weekend. “But I don’t want to fool anybody: We still have to work through some real differences,” he said.

And here’s another reason to be skeptical that a deal is near.

Mr. Obama renewed his demand that tax increases—targeted at corporate jet owners, oil and gas companies and Americans making more than $250,000 a year—be included in a deficit-reduction deal.

But House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) rejected that idea. “The legislation the president has asked for—which would increase taxes on small businesses and destroy more American jobs—cannot pass the House, as I have stated repeatedly,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement.

All a tax on corporate jet owners will end up doing is hurt the people who make corporate jets — who are not the high rollers, but average Americans who make stuff.