1. Harry Reid says the Republicans need to drop their extremism.
2. Harry Reid said nothing about the Democrats needing to drop their extremism.
Your second statement includes the false assumption that Democrats are extremist. Repeating it over and over won't make it true. In fact, it's clear that Republicans ARE extremist and Democrats are mainstream. Want proof?
Republicans are adamant that every penny of reduction in the yearly budget must come from reduced spending. Not a single penny may come from increased taxes.
Democrats tried to negotiate a plan involving 50% cuts and 50% tax increases. When that was rejected by House Republicans, Obama offered a deal involving $1.7 trillion is cuts and $800 billion in new taxes. Guess what? House Republicans rejected that deal, too. Finally, Obama proposed to Boehner the "Grand Bargain," a $4 billion deal that would have involved significantly more spending cuts than tax increases.
From Politico:
Tax policy disputes were at the center of the collapse, including differences with the White House over President Barack Obamas demand that future tax reforms must maintain or increase the progressivity of the tax code. But for days Boehner has been under relentless pressure from conservatives to step away from the deal, which Saturdays Wall Street Journal editorial writers dubbed Boehners Obama Gamble.
Boehner had effectively agreed to decouple the high-end tax rates of the Bush era from the middle and lower income rates favored by Democrats. But before anything changed in 2013, he was promised enactment of broad reform covering personal and corporate taxes with the goal of lowering rates by establishing a more efficient code.
Nonetheless, it was a tall order given the assumption that the deal would also yield close to $1 trillion in new revenues over 10 years. Ending oil and gas tax breaks, as well as the favorable carried interest capital gains rates used to shelter investor income, would be part of the picture. But reform also would have to contribute its share of new revenues.
From the Washington Post:
The sweeping deal Obama and Boehner had been discussing would have required both parties to take a bold leap into the political abyss. Democrats were demanding more than $800 billion in new tax revenue, causing heartburn among the hard-line fiscal conservatives who dominate the House Republican caucus. Republicans, meanwhile, were demanding sharp cuts to Medicare and Social Security, popular safety net programs that congressional Democrats have vowed to protect.
Obama, at least, was willing to make that leap and had put significant reductions to entitlement programs on the table. But on Saturday, Boehner blinked: Republican aides said he could not, in the end, reach agreement with the White House on a strategy to permit the Bush-era tax cuts for the nations wealthiest households to expire next year, as lawmakers undertook a thorough rewrite of the tax code.
So the deal would have involved $800 billion to $1 trillion in new tax revenuse and $3+ trillion in spending cuts, including reduction in entitlement programs. But House Republicans again said no. "No new taxes."
Numerous polls have shown that a sizable majority of the American people believe that a combination of cuts and taxes is the correct approach. And by the way, a large majority of economists also believe that a combination of cuts and taxes is the only rational way out of America's economic problems.
Extremist: a supporter or advocate of extreme doctrines or practices.
Extreme: beyond the ordinary or average
By definition, since what the Democrats want is supported by the majority, it's not extreme. But knock yourself out with that "Democrats are extremist" doctrine. I'm sure you can find an extremist minority to agree with you.
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