If your spouse went on a spending spree, then announced "we need to tighten our belts and start budgeting," would you agree to share the pain 50-50? No, you'd tell your spouse to send back the big-ticket items before any negotiations.

Now watch Washington's odd couple. Negotiate. As President Obama and Congressional Republicans head toward the fiscal cliff, Obama is holding onto his big-ticket item — the brand new, $1 trillion dollar health plan subsidies created in the Obama health law. The law was passed in 2010, but the subsidies don't go into effect until 2014. Amazingly, Republican negotiators haven't even asked the president to trim these subsidies. That's a missed opportunity. The best way to reform entitlements is before they begin, because if you wait, people get accustomed to them and don't want them changed.

In 2014, the federal government will require most Americans to have the mandatory, one-size-fits-all government designed health plan. It will cost more than most health plans do now, and the subsidies are designed to soften the blow from that higher price tag. Households earning up to an amazing $92,300 will be eligible for the subsidy, and by the end of the decade that income ceiling will rise to $100,000.

Clearly these subsidies are aimed at people who are not needy, and they cost a staggering$1,017,000,000,000 over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The string of zeroes says it all. These subsidies will be one of the costliest items in the federal budget. Eliminating these subsidies would achieve more spending reductions than the entire list of cuts proposed by the Republicans.

Unfortunately, the Republicans' initial Dec. 3 proposal set the parameters for the negotiations. Speaker of the House John Boehner's spending cuts focused almost entirely on Medicare and Social Security. The Obama health law already raided $716 billion from Medicare over the next decade. Cuts to Medicare pay for over half that law. President Obama called for a "balanced" plan this time around, but there is no balance when entitlement reform focuses only on cutting benefits for seniors.

Republicans are also getting bamboozled on the revenue side of the ledger. The president insists that he will not do any deal unless it raises tax rates on the "rich," meaning households earning more than $250,000 a year. The truth is that the president just raised tax rates on the rich. The new higher rates go into effect Jan. 1, whether or not there is a fiscal cliff deal.

There are 20 new taxes or tax hikes in the Obama health law, totaling about half a trillion dollars in the law's first decade. The Medicare hospital insurance tax goes up, though the extra revenue will not be going to Medicare. Currently you pay 1.45 percent of your gross pay, but the new law raises that to 2.35 percent if you individually earn more than $200,000 or your household earns more than $250,000.

There's also a new 3.8 percent Medicare tax on "unearned income," though once again the money doesn't go to Medicare. The tax applies to dividends and profits from selling stocks, bonds, a vacation home or even in some cases your primary residence. Only the "rich" have to pay it, but you could find yourself in the "rich" income bracket if you sell that lake house you've had for 40 years. The new 3.8 percent tax applies in addition to capital gains tax.

Whether you agree with Republicans that higher tax rates deter growth, or you side with the president that the "rich" should pay more, you deserve the facts. The president claims his proposal would result in the same tax rates on high earners that prevailed during the prosperous Clinton years. In truth, the rates could be higher, if the president succeeds in raising income tax rates and capital gains rates to Clinton era levels, and then applies the new Obamacare taxes on top of that. For examples taxes on capital gains would go up to 23.8 percent, not the 20 percent Clinton rate.

In a negotiation, the party that decides what's up for discussion has an advantage. Ironically, Republicans are ignoring the elephant in the room: the Obama health law's new entitlements and tax rate hikes.

Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D., is a constitutional scholar and a former Lt. Governor of New York State. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.