(Politico) — “Leader Cantor can’t handle the truth when it comes to these tax subsidies for big oil, for corporations sending jobs overseas, for giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country while they’re asking seniors to pay more for less, as they abolish Medicare,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) this week are stepping into the debt ceiling morass with a series of high-level meetings aimed at working out a deal before an Aug. 2 deadline.

Pelosi said Republican determination to fix the deficit with tax cuts is a non-starter. “In the Bush years the Republicans said that tax cuts will produce jobs,” she said. “They didn’t. They produced a deficit.”