IN THE negotiations to reduce America’s long-term deficit and to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the year’s end, Republicans have so far done most of the retreating. But they still want something in return. Emerging from the first—and so far only— negotiating session with Barack Obama on November 16th, Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, said he was “prepared to put revenue on the table, provided we fix the real problem.” By that he meant entitlements, in particular the big three: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—pensions, and health care for the elderly and poor, respectively. On November 20th John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House, demanded that Mr Obama’s health-care plan should also be on the table.

Cutting these entitlements challenges Democratic orthodoxy almost as much as higher taxes challenges Republican. Mr Obama has acknowledged all along that spending has to shrink. During the campaign, he predicted that a bargain would include $2.50 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases. But so far he has made few concessions on entitlements. The two deficit deals he struck with Republicans in 2011 fell almost entirely on discretionary spending: items that Congress must authorise each year, such as education, transport, research, foreign aid and defence. But such spending is already approaching its lowest share of GDP since the 1950s. Big automatic cuts to domestic and defence discretionary spending will drive it even lower if the parties do not agree to override the cuts by January.